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Sinkhole Opens Up In National Corvette Museum, Swallows Eight Cars

More cars are being moved inside the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Ky. to avoid falling down the same sinkhole that swallowed eight classic sports cars early this morning, Autoblog reported. Museum officials said the hole was discovered when motion sensors activated around 5:45 a.m. The rescue mission can be viewed on the museum's live feed cameras, which weren't working after the sinkhole emerged. A 1993 ZR-1 Spyder and a 2009 ZR1 "Blue Devil," both on loan from General Motors, were among the cars that fell into the sinkhole. The museum owned the other affected Corvettes, which included a 1963 Corvette, a 1984 PPG Pace Car and the 1 millionth Corvette ever produced. The state of the cars at the bottom of the hole isn't known, but trial lawyer and sinkhole expert Ted Corless said the cars may be a total loss for the museum and GM. "Most states, including Kentucky, exclude damage caused by sinkhole activity," he said. "There will be, in all likelihood, a claim made, but a lot of policies would specifically exclude these kinds of damages." Corless has 15 years experience dealing with sinkholes. He said that typically neither the building, nor the cars themselves are protected under their insurance policies. "I would have to say, more likely then not, they're going to have an uninsured loss measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars." The museum is closed Wednesday while a structural engineer assesses the damage. Related Gallery 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Test Drive View 9 Photos Related Gallery 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Test Drive View 9 Photos Weird Car News Chevrolet GM corvette

Nissan Leaf sells 3,186 in best month ever as Chevy moves 2,511 Volts

The end of summer seems to inspire people to go out and buy a lot of plug-in vehicles. Last year, for example, the Chevy Volt had its best month ever in August, with 3,351 sales. This year, the Nissan Leaf is going up to the winner's podium, setting its own best-ever record with 3,186 units sold. This beats the Leaf's previous record by 69 vehicles. This beats the Leaf's previous record of 3,117 set in May 2014 by 69 vehicles and is up 31.7 percent from August 2013. Nissan is once again quick to remind us that the popular EV's record sales streak has now been extended to 18 months in a row. This record is simply noting that the current month, in this case August, had the highest sales that that month has ever seen in the US. Over all, US Leaf sales are up 34.1 percent so far this year. In a prepared statement, Nissan's director of Leaf sales and infrastructure, Brendan Jones, said that the Leaf is selling well on both coasts, including cities like Raleigh, Boston and Washington, DC. "It's what we call the 'cul-de-sac phenomenon,' where once someone in a community buys a Leaf, then friends, family, co-workers and neighbors see the benefits of this fun-to-drive electric vehicle firsthand and are sold on the idea of going electric," he said. The Volt also had a good month - its best of 2014 by almost 500 sales – but the 2,511 Volt sales still represent a drop of 25.1 percent from the excellent sales the Volt had this time last year. In fact, August 2014 represents the Volt's best sales month since, well, August 2013. Apparently, there's just something about the end of summer. As always, we are working on our in-depth round-up of green car sales across the country and will have that up soon.

Fernando Alonso sputters in his Indy test

INDIANAPOLIS — Helio Castroneves and Fernando Alonso kept waiting around Wednesday. Now both international stars have some unfinished business to take care before qualifying for this year's Indianapolis 500. After enduring a rain delay of more than four hours then watching IndyCar regulars turn laps at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for two more hours, Castroneves and Alonso finally made it onto the track — but couldn't quite complete their refresher course. "Happy to be back here because this place is great," Alonso said after posting a fast lap of 218.690 mph — the slowest of the nine-driver evening session. "We were slow because the weather and some of the decisions people made on running time and things like that." He faced a bevy of problems in his first trip back to Indy since an impressive rookie performance in 2017. The rain delay forced organizers into rescheduling the one-day test, moving the rookie and refresher driver time from midday to the evening, cutting a significant amount of practice time for Alonso and the others. And when the green flag finally waved, Alonso's No. 66 car stalled in the warmup lane forcing the two-time Formula One champion from Spain to be towed back to pit lane where his crew worked feverishly to fix an electrical problem while sat in the cockpit. Eventually, he did get out and passed the first of two refresher phases. He'll have to wait until opening practice of the 500 on May 14 to pass the second. "It was frustrating for everyone because it was a brand new chassis and a brand new car, so we expected to run a lot," said Alonso, who drives for McLaren Racing. "If we could have had this at midday, you could work on your issues in the afternoon and then go out again." To put his day in perspective, Takuma Sato, the 2017 Indy winner from Japan, posted the fastest lap of the day at 226.993 mph and Colton Herta was the fastest rookie at 226.108. Castroneves, as usual, was good right from the start and posted a fast lap of 225.565. The three-time Indianapolis 500 winner looked smooth and fast on his favorite track and wasted no time passing the first phase. That much should have been expected from the popular Brazilian, who has recorded seven top-three finishes in 18 Indy starts and will make his season debut May 11 in the IndyCar Grand Prix. The weather and yellow flags prevented four of the five veterans — Castroneves, Alonso, Oriol Servia and JR Hildebrand — from passing phase two. Only Indy native Conor Daly made it.