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Conquest and controversy conclude the 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona [spoilers]

If you don't wish to know who won the 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona, you should avert your eyes right now. We'll even give you a double-space to skedaddle...
For those of you still with us, the first race in the United SportsCar Championship (USCC) is done, but the discussions about it certainly won't end for a while. Daytona Prototypes claimed the first four overall places, the top spot taken by the No. 5 Action Express Coyote-Chevrolet Corvette DP driven by Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi, Sebastien Bourdain and Burt Friselle. The 16th and final caution of the race bunched the field up for an eight-minute sprint to the flag, so the first place getter finished just 1.4 seconds ahead of the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Dallara-Chevrolet Corvette DP driven by Max Angelelli. Third place went to Brian Friselle in the No. 9 Action Express Chevrolet Corvette DP, 20 seconds down. Chevrolet power hasn't taken the overall win since 2003, eleven years later it scores a one-two-three-four. The No. 6 Muscle Milk/Pickett Racing ORECA-Nissan 03 scored fifth place, the top LMP2 finisher.
The Prototype Challenge class win went to the No. 54 CORE Autosport team of Colin Braun, Jon Bennett, Mark Wilkins and James Gue.

2016 Chevy Volt wins Green Car of the Year

The award ceremony for the 2016 Green Car Of The Year announcement at the LA Auto Show today started with a joke video by juror Jay Leno. Showing of a restored and refurbished 100-year-old Detroit Electric EV, Leno said that while there were a lot of different powertrains in the running this year, he didn't expect any German diesels to win. Yuk yuk. There was no doubt that Leno was right; there were no diesels in the finalist's circle. The winner this year was the new, second-generation Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid with a 53-mile electric range and 106 MPGe. The first-gen car won the title five years ago, making the Volt the first model to be crowned Green Car Of The Yera more than once. The other finalists this year were the Audi A3 E-Tron, the new Toyota Prius, the Hyundai Sonata, and the Honda Civic. One of Green Car Journal's most important factors in deciding the winner is widespread availability, said Green Car Journal editor Ron Cogan as he announced the award. Qualifying vehicles also have to be on sale by January 1st of the award year (in this case, 2016). For the record, AutoblogGreen readers also picked the Volt to win in our poll a few months ago with 42 percent of the vote. Second place was the Prius, with 21 percent. Earlier this year, Green Car Journal had to strip the awards from two diesel vehicles, the 2009 VW Jetta TDI, which won in 2008, and the 2010 Audi A3 TDI, the 2010 winner. We enjoyed our seat time in the new Volt, and you can read our review here. Related Video:

Poor headlights cause 40 cars to miss IIHS Top Safety Pick rating

Over the past few months, we've noticed a number of cars and SUVs that have come incredibly close to earning one of the IIHS's highest accolades, the Top Safety Pick rating. They have great crash test scores and solid automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning systems. What trips them up is headlights. That got us wondering, how many vehicles are there that are coming up short because they don't have headlights that meet the organization's criteria for an "Acceptable" or "Good" rating. This is a revision made after 2017, a year in which headlights weren't factored in for this specific award. This is also why why some vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, might have had the award last year, but have lost it for this year. We reached out to someone at IIHS to find out. He responded with the following car models. Depending on how you count, a whopping 40 models crash well enough to receive the rating, but don't get it because their headlights are either "Poor" or "Marginal." We say depending on how you count because the IIHS actual counts truck body styles differently, and the Infiniti Q70 is a special case. Apparently the version of the Q70 that has good headlights doesn't have adequate forward collision prevention technology. And the one that has good forward collision tech doesn't have good enough headlights. We've provided the entire list of vehicles below in alphabetical order. Interestingly, it seems the Volkswagen Group is having the most difficulty providing good headlights with its otherwise safe cars. It had the most models on the list at 9 split between Audi and Volkswagen. GM is next in line with 7 models. It is worth noting again that though these vehicles have subpar headlights and don't quite earn Top Safety Pick awards, that doesn't mean they're unsafe. They all score well enough in crash testing and forward collision prevention that they would get the coveted award if the lights were better.