I really need to get a digital slr, as my manual focus skills with the FZ-8 are seriously lacking. Of a few hundred on track shots, there are only a few that I’m happy to share. Not to worry though, these few should keep everyone happy until the Girls of Lime Rock set appears!

Oh yes, the shot above is the surprise winner, the Patron Acura of David Brabham and Scott Sharp.

Gallery after the break
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Lime Rock Park is one of the grand old ladies of North American motorsports, having made it’s mark during the golden era of sports car racing in the Fifties and Sixties. In fact, it is one of the few remaining tracks from the early days, with places Like Watkins Glen and Mosport carrying the flag for road racing in a natural setting. What a setting it is indeed!

Nestled in a valley in the Berkshire mountains, Lime Rock is surrounded by some stunning scenery which makes for a couple of incredible natural grandstands where spectators can see as much as 3 turns at a time. The track is also relatively short (when compared to a place like Mosport) and the LMP cars were lapping in the 50 second range, which means there is always something going on in front of the fans. I almost cringe to say it, but Lime Rock offers better spectating opportunities than my home track, Mosport.
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Frank as in Detective Frank Bullitt. The Garage is heading south for Connecticut early tomorrow morning. Destination: Lime Rock Park to cover the American Le Mans Series event. If we make it the whole way with our licenses intact, it will be a miracle.

In fact, I had been behind the wheel a grand total of about 7 minutes this afternoon before I decided to attack an on ramp. Right under the watchful eye of the local constabulary. Fortunately, Oakville Ontario’s finest must have had more important things to do than question a fat old man about his driving habits and he left me alone. We will have to mind our p’s and q’s along the way, as while Frank may look stealthy he has a healthy bark that attracts attention at every stop light.

It’s just so much fun to open Frank up and hear his heart growl that I’m sure the side roads through the Catskills are going to be a hoot. As the weekend goes by, we’ll be blogging and posting tons of photos along the way. My co-pilot this time out is a former Mustang owner, who will likely put in a few comments here and there about the improvements Ford has made in the last 19 years since he bought his LX. We’re going to meet up with a few friends from the web over the weekend, so we should have a few surprises along the way.

Aston Martin Racing has revealed the first impressions of its new GT2 racing car.

Known as the Vantage GT2, the new car is based on the V8 Aston Martin Vantage road car. The new car will mean Aston Martin is the only manufacturer to offer cars in every GT racing category: GT1 – DBR9; GT2 - Vantage GT2; GT3 – DBRS9; GT4 – Vantage N24.

For the first time, Aston Martin Racing is designing this car to run on either standard race fuel or E85 bio-ethanol. In 2007, Aston Martin Racing successfully converted a standard DBRS9 to run on E85. Currently the American Le Mans Series allows E-85.

A stealthy looking Mazda “quasi” supercar, this one only generates 450hp from its three-rotor engine, will visit Detroit next month.

The Furai has stayed pretty well under wraps, with Mazda being relatively close lipped about its details. What I do know is that Mazda took an America Le Mans Series racecar as its inspiration and designed the car on top of the Courage C65 chassis that Mazda promoted on the race track a couple of years back.

I’m happy to introduce another new contributor to The Garage, photo buff Nelson Wu. Nelson was lucky to get some sunshine during his visit to the ALMS Mosport Grand Prix a couple of weeks ago and has a huge gallery to share. As the racing season winds down here in Ontario, this may be the last we hear from Nelson for a few months, but I’m sure we’ll see lots from him in the spring. You can see more of Nelson’s work at his Flickr page.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

One problem with heading to the track on Saturday morning with plans to shoot photos is the lack of pit babes. Add in the real rain in months and there are even fewer. Not to worry though, the ladies from Mobil 1 and Kumho were there and they had bright smiles despite the gloomy weather.
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One thing I’ve always loved about Mosport is the accessibility the fans have to the cars & the stars. While my media pass allowed for some great pit lane access, anybody can get up close and personal with the cars and most racers and crew love to talk with the fans.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take full advantage of the trackside access. I didn’t feel like standing at the very edge of the track in the pouring rain. I have no interest in being a target for wayward race cars. I did get some decent shots from the outside of Corner 1 though and will post them later.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Just got back from a very wet morning at Mosport, where I got tons of photos of the Speed World Challenge and ALMS cars both on track and in the paddock. I also got to spend some time with Randy Pobst, and we’ll have some shots of that later on today.

For now just a pit lane teaser

We don’t usually comment on the financial side of things in the car industry, but today’s news is too cool to pass up. Ford has announced today that their Aston Martin brand is to be sold off to a consortium led by David Richards, proprietor of Prodrive. You might recall Prodrive, they are the team that saw success in the World Rally Championship and are currently the team responsible for building the Aston Martin racing effort in ALMS and European racing series. This is really good news for high end niche manufacturer, which will now be able to focus on quicker product development.

Read the Ford press release after the break.
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