Author Archive: Brian Lohnes
Checker: Out of Business
Who the hell knew that Checker still existed? Like, you know, the cab company. We were at first excited to hear the name, and then we learned we were hearing it because the company had declared...
Barnstormin’: Me and Steve
As I’ve mentioned, probably far too often over on the forum, I really love to announce drag races. It’s probably the one thing in life that I feel like I have a strong handle on doing....
Motorized Freak of the Week: Russian ZiL Screw-Propelled Truck Thing
This week’s Freak entry is short on factoids but long on weird. This is the Russian ZiL-29601, a military vehicle that ditched the idea of wheels or tracks and went straight to giant screws....
Friday Excuse to Go Home Early and Drink: New EPA Boss Wants States to Decide on Auto Emissions
With the new administration on the way into the White House next week, we’re thinking that cars and the car hobby are going to be under closer scrutiny than they have been in some time. The...
Gearhead Destination: The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum
Knoxville, Iowa is the home of the Knoxville, Nationals. For the uninformed, that’s the biggest, baddest Sprint Car race in the world. It’s the US Nationals, Indy 500, and Wrestlemania...
The Red Ball Express: How To Get a Junker Cross-Country For Free In 8 Easy Steps
By now most of you regulars know the wacky story of Freiburger trying to give away his dirt-track racer Javelin and how, on a dime, I became the recipient of this fine piece of machinery. The caveat...
Neat Gearhead Open House and Chassis Training Seminar
If we lived closer to Missouri, we’d totally be at Andy McCoy race Cars on February 21st to check out the shop and learn the ins and outs of chassis certifications. It would sure beat the hell...
New Stainless Pipes for New Challengers
We like to complain about the weight of the new Challenger, but there’s another area that the well sculpted car lacks, and that’s sound. Obviously, OEM manufacturers can’t be...
Moroso Motorsports Park Conundrum
We’ve been following with some interest the revitalization of Florida’s former Moroso Motorsports Park since it was purchased by an ownership group last year. The new guys really went to...
Vintage Race Car of the Week: Audi’s Group B Quattro S1
To fans of rally racing, Group B rally cars hold the same reverence that vintage Fuel Altereds do for drag racing fans. Something along the lines of, “That actually happened?!” Like the...
Book Review: Trans-Am: The Pony Car Wars 1966-1972
This book can qualify as a time killer all on its own, with just about every inch of the legendary Trans-Am Series being covered in amazing photographic detail with first hand accounts backing them...
Barnstormin’: Proud to be a Cockroach
On Sunday I happened to find myself on the phone with a drag racing friend. He’s a fairly big wheel racer, and if you watch the NHRA on ESPN you’d be familiar with him. We were discussing...
NASCAR Teams are Right-Sizing
Bob Nardelli keeps using that term, “right sizing,” as a masking agent for layoffs and job losses at Chrysler. We hate it because it sanitizes the truth, which we as a society apparently...
NASA to Team With HANS to Protect Astronauts
Proving once again that the world of motorsports is an environment where new technology is born and tested each day, NASA (like, the space-walk people) are getting together with the folks at HANS to...