2001 Dodge Ram Handicap Van on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Race Recap: Rolex 24 at Daytona was fast and feisty

Let the record show that victory at the 2015 Rolex 24 at Daytona went to the No. 02 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Target/Ford EcoBoost Riley DP driven by Verizon IndyCar drivers Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan and NASCAR drivers Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson. The winner did 740 laps to cover 2,634.3 miles in 24 hours and 57.667 seconds. That's a statement to this year's pace in spite of 18 cautions, two more than last year: the Michael Shank Racing Ligier got pole with a time of 1:39.194, slower than last year's pole time of 1:38.270; however, the winning car last year only did 695 laps. The fight for top honors was shaved to a four-car battle over the first third of the event. The No. 02 Ganassi car took the lead on the first lap, swapping it well into the night with the No. 01 Ganassi car, the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP, and the defending champion No. 5 Action Express Corvette DP, all of them staying within about 20 seconds of one another. The Action Express car had a fuel connector come loose and lost three laps getting towed back to the pits to have it reattached, but was back in the lead 18 hours in. The No. 01 Ganassi car dropped out with recurring clutch problems 22 hours in, retiring not long after. A race-within-the-race is where the concluding action happened, a seven minute, 30-second dash from the end of the last caution to the checkered flag. During the penultimate pit stops with an hour to go, Dixon was in second place followed Jordan Taylor in the Wayne Taylor Racing DP into the pits but beat him out, taking the lead. The Action Express car was in third. In the last pit stops of the race, Dixon gained even more time, getting a four-second advantage over Taylor. Then a full-course caution came out twenty minutes before the finish when a Prototype Challenge car hit the wall and caught fire, bunching up the field. That closed the pits, but the Wayne Taylor Racing car had to pit during that yellow because of a miscalculation of driver time. No driver can be behind the wheel for more than four hours in a six-hour period but Jordan Taylor was going to go over, so he came in to swap out for brother Ricky. That cost the team any chance of second place, since they took an additional drive-through penalty for entering closed pits. When the track went green again, Sebastien Bourdais in the Action Express car stayed all over Dixon for the final five laps but couldn't get around him.

Hellcrate 6.2-liter V8 delivers plug-and-play Hellcat hype to SEMA

SEMA just provided another entry for the folder marked "What A Time To Be Alive," with Mopar's announcement of the "Hellcrate" 6.2-liter supercharged Crate HEMI engine. Enthusiasts have been desperate to upgrade their vintage rides with the woozy thrills provided by Dodge's Hellcat motor, so Mopar answered. The Hellcrate engine assembly ships in plug-and-play configuration, in specially designed packaging with "Hellcrate" logos. The assembly sells separately from the Hellcrate engine kit, the kit adding a powertrain control module, power distribution center, engine wiring harness, chassis harness, accelerator pedal, ground jumper, oxygen sensors, charge air temperature sensors, and fuel pump control module. The PCM comes programmed with the production-car engine's 707 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque. An optional front-end accessory drive kit contributes peripherals like alternator, power steering pump, belts, and pulleys. Don't bother trying to lash up a sleeper 1997 Chrysler Sebring, though; Mopar tuned the Hellcrate for pre-1976 vehicles and manual transmissions. The engine assembly retails for an MSRP of $19,530, and the kit wants a further $2,195. Mopar didn't announce pricing for the accessory drive kit. The engine and kit come with a three-year, unlimited-mileage warranty when bought together. The Mopar Hemi Crate website will be happy to take your orders as of now. For help envisioning the possibilities, stop by Fiat Chrysler's 15,345-square-foot SEMA booth to check out the Limelight Green, Hellcrate-powered 1970 Plymouth Superbird clone worked up by Mark Worman of Velocity's " Graveyard Carz." While you're there you might as well peep Worman's encore, a 1968 Plymouth GTX stuffed with Mopar's 392 Crate HEMI in place of the original 440 big block, and the 1937 Dodge pickup that swallowed a Mopar 345 Crate HEMI. Mopar's come a long way from its original product: antifreeze products. Tomorrow it'll be Jeep's turn to ring the SEMA bells, once the noise dies down from the Mopar-jacked Wrangler Switchback, CJ66 and Jeep Shortcut. You can watch the brand's presentation online at 7:26 p.m. ET/4:26 p.m. PT. Until then, we're going to work the angles on a Hellcrate-powered Plymouth Volare. The sedan, naturally. Because we're practical. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Autoblog's Editors' Picks: Our complete list of the best new vehicles

It's not easy to earn an “EditorsÂ’ Picks” at Autoblog as part of the rating and review process that every new vehicle goes through. Our editors have been at it a long time, which means weÂ’ve driven and reviewed virtually every new car you can go buy on the dealer lot. There are disagreements, of course, and all vehicles have their strengths and weaknesses, but this list features what we think are the best new vehicles chosen by Autoblog editors. We started this formal review process back in 2018, so there's quite of few of them now. So what does it mean to be an EditorsÂ’ Pick? In short, it means itÂ’s a car that we can highly recommend purchasing. There may be one, multiple, or even zero vehicles in any given segment that we give the green light to. What really matters is that itÂ’s a vehicle that weÂ’d tell a friend or family member to go buy if theyÂ’re considering it, because itÂ’s a very good car. The best way to use this list is is with the navigation links below. Click on a segment, and you'll quickly arrive at the top rated pickup truck or SUV, for example. Use the back button to return to these links and search in another segment, like sedans. If youÂ’ve been keeping up with our monthly series of the latest vehicles to earn EditorsÂ’ Pick status, youÂ’re likely going to be familiar with this list already. If not, welcome to the complete list that weÂ’ll be keeping updated as vehicles enter (and others perhaps exit) the good graces of our editorial team. We rate a new car — giving it a numerical score out of 10 — every time thereÂ’s a significant refresh or if it happens to be an all-new model. Any given vehicle may be impressive on a first drive, but we wait until itÂ’s in the hands of our editors to put it through the same type of testing as every other vehicle that rolls through our test fleet before giving it the EditorsÂ’ Pick badge. This ensures consistency and allows more voices to be heard on each individual model. And just so you donÂ’t think weÂ’ve skipped trims or variants of a model, we hand out the EditorsÂ’ Pick based on the overarching model to keep things consistent. So, when you read that the 3 Series is an EditorsÂ’ Pick, yes, that includes the 330i to the M3 and all the variants in between. If thereÂ’s a particular version of that car we vehemently disagree with, we make sure to call that out.