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Watch the Le Mans Audi R8 safety car drift during red flag

With open-wheel, prototype, and GT cars so dependent on keeping their tires warm, European series enlist much higher-performance cars than the family sedans that pace the NASCAR field. That also means their drivers need to know their way around a race track. Yannick Dalmas, the driver of the 24 Hours of Le Mans' Audi R8 safety car, proved that point during heavy rains yesterday. The four-time Le Mans champ and former F1 driver had a bit of a moment during the red flag. We don't know if Dalmas was having a bit of fun or genuinely getting out of trouble on the deluged track, but cameras caught him executing an lurid drift that will probably end up in an Audi commercial in the near future. It's hard to tell what section of the track Dalmas went drifting at – it's pitch black in the video – but based on the downward, right-hand bend, we're guessing it was between Tertre Rouge and the start-finish line, maybe in the Esses. You can see the big moment in the video, which generated plenty of cheers from the red-flagged racers and their pit crews. Stick around for the end of the video for Porsche driver Mark Webber's impressed reaction. Related Video: News Source: TheGamingCouple via YouTube Motorsports Audi Coupe Racing Vehicles Performance Videos circuit de la sarthe

Stanford goes from Pikes Peak to Thunderhill with autonomous Audi TTS

In the years since Stanford University engineers successfully programmed an Audi TTS to autonomously ascend Pikes Peak, the technology behind driverless cars has progressed leaps and bounds. Back then the Audi needed 27 minutes to make it up the 12.42-mile course – about 10 minutes slower than a human driver. These days, further improvements allow the vehicle to lap a track faster than a human. The researchers recently took their autonomous TTS named Shelley to the undulating Thunderhill Raceway Park, and let it go on track without anyone inside. The Audi reportedly hit over 120 miles per hour, and according to The Telegraph, the circuit's CEO, who's also an amateur racing driver, took some laps as well and was 0.4 seconds slower than the computer. To make these massive technological advancements, the Stanford engineers have been studying how racers handle a car. They also hooked up drivers' brains to electrodes and found the mind wasn't doing as much cognitively as expected. It instead operated largely on muscle memory. "So by looking at race car drivers we are actually looking at the same mathematical problem that we use for safety on the highways. We've got the point of being fairly comparable to an expert driver in terms of our ability to drive around the track," Professor Chris Gerdes, director of Stanford's Revs Program, said to The Telegraph. With progress coming so rapidly, it seems possible for autonomous racecars to best even elite drivers at some point in the near future. Related Video:

Junkyard Gem: 1987 Audi 5000

The third-generation Audi 100 introduced for the 1983 model year was sold as the Audi 5000 in the United States. Sales of this high-end German sedan went pretty well ... until 60 Minutes ran a piece called "Out of Control" in late 1986, convincing many viewers that the 5000 was murderously defective. Yes, it was the original Unintended Acceleration debacle, decades before the one that cost Toyota big yen, and it slaughtered American Audi sales. Today's Junkyard Gem had the misfortune to be sitting in an Audi showroom while the echoes of the argle-bargle over the 5000 controversy still reverberated, its price dropping while potential buyers headed into the arms of nearby Mercedes-Benz and BMW dealers. Still, someone bought this car, which would have been a great Colorado winter machine with its 5-speed and Quattro all-wheel-drive system, and it ended up racking up more miles than 98 percent of cars sold in 1987. The presence of an ignition key in a junkyard car usually indicates that it was a trade-in or insurance total. A high-mile, 29-year-old Audi isn't worth much at auction, so this one ended up here. All the automatic-equipped 5000s got scary warning stickers on the shifters, among other recall-mandated changes, and Audi ended up using the European-market 100 name on these cars starting in the 1989 model year . Related Video: Featured Gallery Junked 1987 Audi 5000 Quattro View 18 Photos Auto News Audi unintended acceleration