Tag Archives: NASCAR
AutoTech Roundup: Nissan Juke, Kia Ray Concept, Danica Patrick Wrecks Car At NASCAR Debut, Saab’s $545M Loan, Musk Flying Around In Private Jet
Nissan Juke
Nissan has released official images of the Nissan Juke. At the front of the Juke, there is six pairs of lights including head lamps, fog lights, and large round auxiliary lights. The interior is inspired by a fuel tank of a motorcycle too [CNET].
Kia Ray Concept
Below is a picture of the Kia Ray, a natural gas-powered vehicle that debuted at the Chicago Auto Show. Under the glass hood is a 153 horsepower and 1.4 liter direct-injection engine [AutoMobileBlog].
Patrick Crashes GoDaddy Car In 12 Car Pileup
In her debut at the NASCAR Nationwide race, Danica Patrick crashed the GoDaddy Chevy Impala in a 12 car pile-up.
Saab Approved For $545 Million Loan
Saab has been approved for a $545 million loan. “We are extremely pleased with the decision by the EIB as this was a crucial component in enabling the acquisition of Saab to proceed. Months of hard work have paid off, said Victor Muller, Spyker’s CEO. “We cannot wait to close this transaction now as soon as practically possible. We extend our gratitude to the EIB officials who have worked relentlessly to make this happen.” [eGMcarTech]
Musk Flying Around In Private Jet
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk flew his private jet to Washington D.C. over 12 times since last year according to Autospies. Some of these trips were intended to request government public financing. This is ironic because GM, Chrysler, and Ford executives were heavily criticized by members of Congress for doing the same thing. Musk flew in a Dassault Falcon 900 and landed in Washington in mid-June of 2009. Around that time is when Tesla was given a $465 million loan from the DoE. Tesla is planning to raise an additional $100 million in an IPO. [AutoSpies]
AutoTech Roundup: Hyundai Chairman Sued For $60 Million, GM’s Upcoming Rear-Wheel Hybrids, Ford Shelby Shows Off The 2011 GT500, Danica Headed To NASCAR, Jim Lentz Talks To Digg, Chad Henne Wins Audi Competition
Hyundai Chairman Mong-Koo Ordered To Pay $60 Million
Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-Koo will have to pay $60 million in damages to Hyundai Motor Company because of a lawsuit brought by 14 minority shareholders in the car company. Hyundai shareholders Chung Mong-Koo and Kim Dong-Jin suffered major losses when Hyundai Motors sold shares of Hyundai Chaebol (Hyundai Airspace & Aircraft Co. and Hyundai Hysco) and their affiliates. [TheTruthAboutCars]
General Motors Working On Rear-Wheel Drive Hybrids
General Motors will be moving their Two Mode Hybrid powertrain made for trucks to rear-drive cars according to GM Vice Chairman of Global Product Operations Tom Stephens. This motor will appear in 2013 when GM introduces a new line of full-size trucks. [Edmunds]
Ford Shows Off The Shelby GT500
Ford will be showing off the 2011 Shelby GT500 later today at the SVT garage near Detroit. [AutoWeek]
Danica Patrick Heading To NASCAR Nationwide Series
GoDaddy.com girl Danica Patrick got 6th place at the ARCA race this past Saturday. This year she will have a Nascar Nationwide Series debut at the Daytona International Speedway. “Racing in the Nationwide Series race was my goal during this entire two-month preparation process, but we wanted to make sure it was the right thing to do,” stated Patrick as quoted by The New York Times. Patrick will drive the Number 7 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet Impala. [NYT]
Toyota Exec Jim Lentz Goes On Digg
Jim Lentz, President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales will be answering some of the top questions asked by the Digg communitylater today as part of a Live Digg Dialogg. Over 1,000 questions have been asked on the forum. Some of the questions include:
“What do you drive?”
“How far along is Toyota on moving into some truly gas free cars in the future? Are these kinds of vehicles even possible or feasible in our current lifetime?”
“It has been years since Toyota had a sports car (Supra) available for sale in North America. Are there any plans to bring back the Supra or come out with a new afordable [sac] sports car?” [Digg]
Chad Henne Wins Audi Fuel-Efficiency Competition
Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Henne won a competition between reporters, writers, and athletes to find out who can get the most miles per gallon out of a 2010 Audi Q7 TDI engine. The route was to be between Herdon, Virginia and Miami, Florida. Henne was able to achieve 32.6MPG. Henne won $20,000 and donated it to the Berks County Community Foundation. [Examiner]
Ask.com, The Official Search Engine of NASCAR
InterActiveCorp subsidiary Ask.com has signed a deal to become the official search engine for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Ask.com wants to push their brand in front of the second-most popular professional sport on TV. NASCAR has about 75 million fans that purchase $3 billion in licensed products.
The financial details of the deal was not disclosed. Jim Safka, CEO of Ask.com said that the goal of the deal is to have NASCAR fans use their search engine to look up information about NASCAR. Ask.com will run the search engine on the NASCAR website and will also make a “NASCAR toolbar” for those users. Ask will offer detail searches of NASCAR’s databases and the two companies will be showing display Ask.com ads at the races.
Ask.com sponsors the No. 96 Ford car driven by Bobby Labonte as part of a pact with the Hall of Fame racing. The Ask.com Ford car will drive in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series as well.
“NASCAR fans are the most sponsor-loyal fan base in sports,” stated Ask.com spokesperson Andrea Riggs. “NASCAR fans appreciate the companies who support the sport they love and who enable the teams to keep racing.”
Categories Ask.com, Bobby Labonte, Jim Safka, NASCAR
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Dick Glover, Former Nascar VP Signs As Funny Or Die CEO
Funny or Die, the video web site that focuses around a slapstick genre has a new CEO. The new CEO is Dick Glover and he is the former Vice President of NASCAR. Glover helped market NASCAR to go Hollywood through the form of the movie, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay wrote Talladega Nights and also co-founded Funny or Die together.
Funny or Die is backed with over $15 million, mostly from Sequoia and has really been pumping out some funny videos lately. Some of the videos that I enjoyed recently on Funny or Die includes a that parodies Al Sharpton’s opposition of rap music videos starring Li’l Jon and a video that makes fun of Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy by using a toddler to play Spears.
Correction: The below paragraph can be scratched out (see comment). I just learned that Dick Glover did have an Internet background: he started ESPN.com in 1994. ESPN.com is ranked #44 on Alexa today.Â
Placing a CEO that has a limited Internet background could be risky, but at the same time has its pluses. During Terry Semel’s tenure as the CEO of Yahoo!, the company started making some value-added acquisitions such as Flickr and Del.icio.us, but passed on some potentially major acquisitions such as Google. Semel didn’t have an Internet background because he had just previously worked as the CEO of Warner Brothers for 24 years. However, lack of experience could catch up with you as displayed in the reasons why Semel started losing his flair as the CEO of Yahoo!, due to reasons such as Google’s sudden dominance in the search market.
Regardless, I see Funny or Die doing well. But the only way to keep it going is if they retain the talent that they have now. The company wouldn’t be where it is today without Ferrell or McKay.
Categories FunnyOrDie.com, NASCAR, Sequoia Capital
4 Comments