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24 Hours of Le Mans live update part three

We tasked surfing journalist Rory Parker to watch this year's live stream of the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans. What follows is an experiment to experience the world's greatest endurance race from the perspective of a motorsports novice. Parker lives in Hawaii and has an associates degree in dropping f-bombs. For Part One, click here. Part Two is here. Really hoped I'd be able to grab an hour or two of sleep before the sun rose over Le Mans. Dark dark dark, couldn't figure out what was going on. Commentators struggled at times as well. But I couldn't do it. Endurance racing is just too exciting. Grabs my attention with both fists. Screams, "watch these men DRIVE!" A neighbor invited me over for drinks. Told him, "Can't do it, gotta watch Le Mans!" Maybe not exactly. I'll admit, at times my attention wandered. I did a load of laundry. Ate some snacks. Half listened to the commentary. Threw a hump at my wife. I learned that Patrick Long, driving #88, is big brother to Kevin "Spanky" Long. Spanky's a bit of a legend in the skate world. Always weird how top notch talent can run in families like that. Kind of surprised I've never heard that before. Worked for a skate mag for a years, met Spanky a handful of times. Someone must've told me that he has an older brother who drives race cars. Dash cams at night are scary. High powered headlights in the P1s reach almost 300 meters. Cars outrun that distance easy. Seems like they're just steering into the black and hoping for the best. But that can't be the case. People'd be dropping dead let and right. Very amused by how the guys in GT are like, "Dude, stop flashing your fucking lights before you pass." But the LMP's are all, "Suck a dick! I do what I want." Top three stayed neck and neck nearly all night long. As the sun gets ready to creep back over the horizon the top three are separated by only eleven and a half seconds. Toyota 5 and 6, Porsche 2. Audi 8 is two laps behind Porsche, beleaguered 7 is dealing with constant trouble eleven laps from the front. GTE Pro sees Ferrari 82 in first, Ford 68 and 69 right behind. To win you've gotta drive perfect, build perfect. Fours cars retired so far. I'm beginning to appreciate the endurance aspect a little more fully. Only really considered the drivers at first. The mental and physical stress driving these cars at these speeds at length would inflict. But keeping the damn things running is the real deal. To win you've gotta drive perfect, build perfect.

Barrett-Jackson rundown: 2024 GMC Hummer EV, Colin Powell's Corvette and more

The echoes of the last hammer fall at Barrett-Jackson's Scottsdale Auction have disappeared into the Arizona night, as have the record crowds and the traffic jams. During the Super Saturday charity auctions, three main attractions drove onto the dais for bidding: Late U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State General Colin Powell’s 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, the hammer price benefitting AmericaÂ’s Promise Alliance, the nonprofit Powell founded to support kids; The first production 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV Edition 1 with VIN 001, proceeds going to Tread Lightly!, which educates people on how to enjoy the outdoors in a motorized vehicle and simultaneously protect the outdoors; And the first production 2024 Ford Mustang GT Fastback VIN 001, its hammer price benefiting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Before the Saturday showcase, charity auctions on Friday took Barrett-Jackson past a huge milestone. When an 800-horsepower 2021 Shelby Super Snake Count's Kustoms Edition hammered for $350,000 to support the veteran's charity Camp Freedom, the auction house officially surpassed the $150 million mark for charity auction proceeds. Piling on before the clock struck midnight, a 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning 4x4 Super Crew sold for $275,000, those funds donated to Fighter Country Foundation. Then came Saturday. Powell's Gunmetal Gray on black Stingray was said to be a daily driver, but with just 15,600 miles on the odometer, Powell — who died in 2021 — apparently had a very short commute. Equipped with an eight-speed automatic transmission and chrome wheels, it sold for $200,000. The first production 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV Edition 1 ran the bidding up to $500,000. That's quite a ways down on the $2,500,000 that the bedded 2022 GMC Hummer EV Edition 1 garnered at the charity auction in 2021, and not a bad price all things considered. The owner gets the first one off the line instead of getting lost in the 90,000-order backlog, and the markup goes to a good cause instead of a flipper and eBay fees. The first production 2024 Mustang GT Fastback brought in both less and more than the Hummer EV. The Ford's hammer price came to $490,000. However, two additional philanthropic donations for this lot in the amounts of $50,000 and $25,000 took the final price to $565,000. The big movers on the day were outside the charity sphere, four cars breaking the million-dollar mark.

Ford Explorer problems gutted third-quarter sales

In early September, the Detroit Free Press published a feature noting numerous problems Ford's having with the 2020 Explorer and 2020 Lincoln Aviator launches. Issues with both SUVs, built at Ford's Chicago Assembly Plant, were so rife and dire that the automaker was trucking the vehicles 275 miles away to Michigan for repairs. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Explorer's third-quarter sales dropped 48 percent compared to the previous model in 2018, with dealers unable to get enough units on lots for customers. Nor is the snafu over: Automotive News reports that another "batch of about 2,500 Explorers in need of repairs" arrived recently in Michigan, and sales through the first nine months of 2019 are down 31 percent. Sales dips during model changeovers are to be expected as old inventory gets sold down and new production ramps up, but this is different. Ford U.S. sales boss Mark LaNeve told Bloomberg earlier this month, "We’ve got adequate inventory in our stores. For Q4, availability wonÂ’t be an issue. WeÂ’ll be able to hit our stride with Explorer starting now." It's hard to know whether that's true, with thousands of Explorers still piling into Michigan; the batch AN mentioned represents about 5 days of sales during an average month in 2018, before the drawdown and interruptions hampered matters. And when Consumer Reports tested the Ford Explorer it bought this summer, it titled the review, "2020 Ford Explorer drives nicely but has many flaws / Poor interior quality and a high price overshadow the SUV's improvements."   On top of that, the AN piece mentions a new impediment to uncorking the Explorer sales stream: Worker strife in the Chicago plant. Allegedly, "Roving groups of workers are intimidating other employees, creating a hostile environment, the people said. ThatÂ’s driving up turnover and leaving some vehicle assembly unfinished, contributing to the company having to complete the work at the Michigan factory or at dealerships, the people said." Ford's been fined twice before for the same kinds of issues at its plants, once in 1999, again in 2017, but a spokesperson said Ford isn't aware of any such problems now. The pressure otherwise has got to be unpleasant for everyone on the Explorer team, from CEO Jim Hackett down. The automaker was meant to be "turning the corner" in April, but as of now, shares are down, credit rating is down, earnings are down.