Comedian Eddie Griffin is the latest in a growing line of no talent dweebs to write off a Ferrari Enzo. It seems that Griffin was practicing for a charity race to promote a movie he’s working on called Redline, when he lost it and wiped the front end off the car.

Said Griffin: “Undercover Brother’s good at karate and all the rest of that, but the brother can’t drive,”
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When it was announced that the Uber Champion F1 driver would stay with Ferrari as Jean Todt’s underling, was there any doubt that this would be a temporary role? For a while it began to look like Mikey would in fact replace the little Frenchman at the top of the Ferrari F1 ladder.

Given the return on money involved in owning an F1 team, is it any wonder that Herr Schumacher might be looking for something grander than managing someone else’s team? Even if it is Ferrari, it will always belong to someone else. For that reason, today’s rumour makes sense.
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It seems that this week is release week for F1 team marketing efforts. First there was the Ferrari video and now we have the Red Bull movie. This wonderful short film features the Red Bull and Toro Rosso team mates, along with a cast of thousands (well, maybe hundreds) in this medieval themed extravaganza. Unfortunately the producers seem to have gotten the sound effects wrong. Now don’t get me wrong, the sound is stunning, they’ve just placed the emphasis in the wrong place. In the Ferrari video, the sweet sounds of combustion make the scenes work. In the Red Bull movie, the ambient sounds are movie quality, but they’ve almost downplayed the sound of the actual cars. It’s a small criticism, but I think they could have edited more soul into the driving scenes.

Enough petty bitching. On to the video after the break.
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So you thought you had all the Ferrari toys huh? You’ve got the car, the pedal car, the replica F1 steering wheel and even the laptop. Well, now you can have the F80, a home entertainment unit made by Meridian with a prancing horse.
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I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car
A brilliant red barchetta, from a better, vanished time
I fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime…
Excerpt from Red Barchetta by Rush

If you grew up in the Seventies, chances are that you grooved to Rush at some point or another. If you were a car nerd, the sound of Geddy Lee wailing about the magical Red Barchetta left you fantasizing about finding a crimson racer beneath the hay in a barn somewhere.
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The importance of building a brand is something that just doesn’t sink in to many people, while many spend years chasing that elusive something that makes a brand work. Then of course there are the brands that are so simple that their success is legendary. The Marlboro brand is one such image.

The tobacco industry has taken a pretty hefty beating over the past few years, as lawmakers have forced tobacco companies to stop advertising in all sorts of venues. Through all of this, most of the cancer stick people have packed up and gone home. Not Marlboro though, as their brand image is one of the strongest in history.
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Yesterday’s tripe from the Vatican:

“The Paris-Dakar, a race which many classify as a sporting event, in reality has very little to do with healthy competition,”

“The trail of blood which grows longer from year to year on the route of the race instead underscores the undeniable component of violence that lies behind every attempt to export Western models to human environments and ecosystems that have little to do with the West,”

These statements were in response to the death of bike racer Elmer Symons during the Dakar rally. An annual event that tests the strength, courage, endurance and even the mortality of every entrant. Every competitor is well aware of the merciless history Dakar has and they choose to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

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Ever seen a Finnish rally car ace dance? Neither had I, but this next compilation somehow manages to fit in some tribal village action. There are a few clips that I haven’t seen before, but not all are actually Group B. The flick opens with a shot of a BMW M1, which I can’t recall ever seeing one on gravel. Be sure to keep an eye out for the Ferrari. A 400i if memory serves.

Oh yes…ignore the cheesy Bryan Adams soundtrack!

The long distance rally gods must have been consulting each other leading up to last week, as there were 3 major events. La Carrera Panamerica, the Ferrari Panamerican 20,000 and the Greatest Diesel Marathon of All Time. While not a race in normal terms, the Marathon was still a distance competition of grand proportions.

Competitors left Paris in no less than 36 Mercedes Benz E320 Diesels, with the goal of being the team to acheive the best fuel mileage over some 14,000 km. Team E-Bay won, with an overall consumption of 7.19 L/100 km.

Perhaps even cooler, was the human consumption: In addition to breakfast and dinners, between Paris and Beijing they consumed about 8,200 lunch sandwiches, 5,300 bananas, 4,000 chocolate bars and 9,600 bottles of mineral water.

Read the full press release after the break

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After 85 days and 20,000 miles, the Ferrari Panamerican team have cruised across the finish line in New York City yesterday afternoon. Fueled by Shell V-Power premium gas, the two 620 horsepower Ferrari 599 GTB Fioranos crossed 16 countries, on some pretty nasty roads. This must have been an incredible journey.

Read the Shell press release after the break. More images to follow once I figure out why I can’t resized them!

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