KLM

That's nonsense. Ain't nothing unlucky about #13.

Miniace, KKG will be held in June, but I can't remember the dates. It will be the second round of the 2009 MRA Rally Championship and as far as I can see, the only tarmac rally on this year's SLAS calendar.

Definitely, HelRazor. The 997 is a phenomenal-looking car but the rear was weak. Hopefully the 998 fixes that.

MOTEC, not EMS machan.

No not youtube. Another site. If this were Sesame Street, today's posts would be brought to you by the letters F and B. I'm not allowed to write out the name of that website on this forum. Sorry Madhawa!

Overdrive, I think Ashan came in a little too hot is all, and I also think that they hadn't given adequate attention to that complex of corners - they should've marked a triple caution there. If you see the pictures, the road kinks right slightly, before going right over this huge culvert and then immediately into a hairpin left. Ashan came in at 140 kmph, braked a little late because he didn't know how bad it was going to be, tried to save the slide but went into the creek where he toppled violently before clobbering a cement barrier and got bounced around within the small confines of the culvert. They'd run this stage twice before, including at night, but this was the first time he was running it without an overheating engine, without suspect tires and with a working intercom. So on the earlier runs through this stage there were no issues because they weren't going quick enough to crash I guess. The result was a furious pace and a small mistake that cost Ashan a lot, especially considering how hard he and his crew had worked on almost every stage break in order to get them to the next stage start. At one point, with 30 seconds to go for him to leave, his car was still on jack-stands after a gasket change. His crew pushed the car off the stands and he thrashed all the way to the line to get there with 5 seconds to spare. A massive effort and he really should have been rewarded with a good finish. But that's rallying, and he'll be back for more. To finish first you first have to finish, and you can never say enough for reliability and running within controllable limits. Kavvz, join the MRA group on that site where your mugshot is booked - all the videos and pictures will end up there over the next few days.

HANS devices aren't mandated by SLAS, the governing body, so the club's cant insist on it. Reyaz Farouk uses one, and he even wore it at Pelwatte. However, I doubt that a SLAS device would have protected against this type of injury because Ashan thinks that his seat might have caused the break. What did save Co-driver Ashan is the very good international-spec roll-cage that driver Ashan had put in the car, with the X-bars for side-impact. A bar tracing the floor of the cabin would have caused even less injury to the co-driver. SLAS has very limited requirements regarding roll-cages and especially for the SL 'GT' cars, this accident should serve as a wake-up call - they need to enforce better roll-cage requirements before somebody gets killed again.

Guys, today's finish has been postponed due to unavoidable circumstances. Watch this space for information on when the prize-giving will be held.

I think everyone SHOULD come to watch the start and finish at least. The cars will start arriving by 4:00 pm.

VAG's TDI technology has now won the Dakar with VW, the Le Mans 24 with Audi and the WTCC with Seat. Pretty impressive.

As usual there will be a sizable Autolanka presence on the rally (officials and competitors), and from what I hear, Grand Civic will be making his competition debut as a co-driver with Dinesh Senanayake this time around. All the best buddy! The provisional entry list shows at least 7 GT-class entries and barring some technical issues, we'll see Nishan Weerasooria, Aravinda Premadasa and Dinesh Deheragoda go up against each other head-to-head for the first time in special stage rallying.

Good scene man. Congratulations to you and the wife.

Yes, the 9th Lane Celica Supra is in a generally atrocious condition and the body is rusted through in many places. It is on GK plates if I remember right.

Check out www.dakar.com for personalized stories of the privateers who risk financial ruin, their health and often lives just to run the greatest motorsport event of them all. Sadly, Nasser has been DSQ'ed, after he chose to drive around a series of sand dunes because of a badly overheating engine. He missed 5 consecutive waypoints and was excluded. The VWs are currently running 1-2-3. Robby Gordon was only 20 odd minutes behind but he got lost in the dunes and now is sadly over an hour adrift. www.motorsport.com has good information and thousands of photos too.

Props to the military for this victory, but in my humble opinion, the celebrations that followed were a bit premature, over the top and in bad taste. The boys need to be congratulated alright, but with so far yet to go and so many people having lost their lives in this offensive, I thought it was in bad taste to act as if the war was over and to celebrate like that. I know this might be an unpopular view, but those are just my thoughts. GFX, why do you say that you hate peace?

Man these Arab buggers have NO taste whatsoever.

I'm no Honda spokesman by any stretch, but I think that an EK9 would have eaten all of these cars on a track on any given day. That should say enough about the car. Guys, I know the term 'classic' is subjective, but aren't we losing the plot here a little? The Peugeot 406 a classic? Come on! It looks great for a 4-door sedan and drives decent but do you see Ralph Lauren's son (or whoever) plonking down big money at the 2030 Barrett-Jackson (or whatever) on one? I think we've all just listed our favorites here, regardless of whether they are really classics or not. Since we'll all have our favorites and will be biased anyway, I think the criteria to look for would be how much collectors would pay for cars in the future. In this era of mass-produced cars the only ones that will demand premiums will be absolutely mint-condition limited edition models, and not your run of the mill daily drivers like 406s etc.

Ya Dimantha the F-150 is an awesome truck. I think it's been the best-selling vehicle in the United States since forever.

GTAm wouldn't you say that your lists are biased? Golf 3 VR6? Z3 M-Coupe? Fiat Coupe? 155? Some of these cars aren't even loved today. Take it to the ATM, within the next decade you'll see some crazy prices paid for mint condition DC2 Honda Integra Type Rs, EK9 Honda Civic Type Rs, the Mitsubishi Lancer 6.5 TME, the Subaru Impreza WRX STI Spec C Type RA-R, R32 and R34 Skylines (esp. the limited editions) and possibly even AE86s. I think the genuine low mileage Type Rs will fetch especially high prices.

I disagree. I think that Vijay Mallya is a genuine enthusiast, unlike Schnaider, and surely no-one can begrudge him a profit if he cashes out in a few years. He is a businessman after all, but a motorsports enthusiast also - he has owned and raced thoroughbred grand prix cars in the past and has recently taken over the Indian version of SLAS, and now runs motorsport in India. The McLaren drivetrain deal also immediately moves them up from the back of the grid to the midfield (at least) and his smart management moves have definitely increased the team's value AND competitiveness. It'll be interesting to see how he fares while running the day to day operations of the team next year, but either way, he has been a positive influence. Also, it has been great to see the Kingfisher Airline pit/grid girls instead of the usual whitebread. Now if he'd only get rid of that silly ear-ring.........

Absolutely nothing. It was (an attempt at) a joke. Mallya is quite the showman, but I'm a big fan of what he has achieved.

Honda got it wrong big-time by using their marketing department to sponsor the F1 car so that they could promote the 'my earth dream' concept. The moment sales dropped, Honda's marketing budget was cut and therefore the team suddenly found itself without a major sponsor, with no relief in sight. In Honda's case it was a flawed business model that didn't survive the crisis but with the others, the prohibitive cost of competing is what did them in. The FIA really needs to reign in spending across all forms of racing because at the end of the day the extra dollars weren't really adding to the spectacle. $400 million to race 2 cars 18 weekends a year is a stupid amount, if you think about it. The new emergency regs for '09 are a step in the right direction, and over the next few years they'll have to trim their collective waistlines even further. F1 has always been, and must remain, about technical innovation but $800,000 for light-weight lug-nuts (per year), $100,000 in helmets per driver (per year), allowing Vijay Mallya to take over Force India etc etc is just stupid and wasteful. Max Mosley keeps saying that another F1 team will crash and burn soon and if that happens we'll most likely see 8 3-car teams, putting 24 cars on the grid. Economies of scale mean that adding a third car will cost teams very little and it'll be nice to see an occasional Ferrari 1-2-3.

Actually, Dev_Z that statement only suggests that Prodrive will return, and not necessarily Subaru. S2K rules, if anybody is interested - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_2000

The end of an era is slowly approaching. It'll truly end at the end of 2009 when the WRC era ends and the FIA implements Super 2000 regulations for World Rally. SWRT will be missed.

Super pictures. I love the sportbikes AND the dirtbikes but the Supermoto-inspired Kawasaki Versys looks very interesting.