2011 Dodge Ram 1500 St on 2040-cars

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One Lap of America, with three times the madness

Instead of celebrating last weekend face down in a sombrero full of tequila-spiked OJ and a few lime wedges, 71 racing teams with one set of tires each and no support crews began Cinco De Mayo — and this year's 35th running of the One Lap of America — by hitting the wet skid pad at Tire Rack's headquarters in South Bend, Ind. There were Porsches, Vettes, Camaros and BMWs galore. There was a Miata, a vintage NSX, a Honda S2000 and even an old VW Rabbit. There were GTIs, the odd Evo and, oh yeah, six Toyotas, a couple of Vipers and a couple of GTRs. When the skidding stopped, a 2011 BMW 1M emerged triumphant and led the pack out into the heartland, where it will spend 5,000 miles this week hitting road courses, dragstrips and time trials at tracks as far west as Denver, as south as Fort Worth and then New Orleans. From there, it will barrel north through Mississippi, Alabama, Nashville, Kentucky and back home again to Tire Rack in Indiana. Twenty events, eight venues, with a three-hour window for each event. It's a nonstop, no-sleep, one-week road trip comprising 150-ish friends and brothers, partiers and pro racing drivers, spouses and other family-member combo packs. Some will never speak to each other again, some might end up divorced, some might get married. All of them are nuts. I know this because I made three laps. Three laps I will never forget.LAP ONE: 1984 Vehicle: 1984 Dodge Van Team #0: Jean Lindamood (Jennings), Walker Evans, Parnelli Jones I was present for the inaugural 1984 One Lap of America because I worked at Car and Driver back then and so did Brock Yates. He was the guy who came up with the clandestine, illegal, unsanctioned Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash from Connecticut to Redondo Beach, Calif. It ran five times in the 1970s, with Yates joining Dan Gurney in a Ferrari Daytona for the second run. They won, Gurney insisting that "at no time did we exceed 175 miles per hour." One Lap was born of Cannonball nostalgia (read: Brock was bored), and I was beyond game for it. After securing a van from Dodge and two giant decals for the van sides, along with $5,000 in sponsorship from local Detroit Stroh's Brewery, I coaxed my friend, nine-time Baja 1000 winner Walker Evans, into running One Lap by suggesting he didn't have a hair on his ass if he refused. Then I suggested that if he didn't get his best friend and longtime road trip buddy, Parnelli Jones, to go with us, I would actually have to drive the van, too.

Junkyard Gem: 2001 Dodge Stratus R/T Coupe

The Chrysler "Cloud Cars" of the 1990s were the Chrysler Cirrus, Plymouth Breeze, and Dodge Stratus; by the turn of our current century, only the Stratus name remained standing. For 2001, the Stratus sedan remained on a Chrysler platform, while the unrelated-other-than-name Stratus coupe became a sibling to the Mitsubishi Eclipse. The Stratus R/T was the hot-rod version; here's a 2001 Stratus R/T coupe languishing in a California self-service wrecking yard. This car has the 5-speed manual transmission, which was becoming a rarity even for performance-minded American car shoppers by the early 21st century. The engine is a DOHC version of the Mitsubishi 6G72, a V6 engine that went into dozens of different vehicles from the mid-1980s through just a few years ago. The Mitsubishi Debonair AMG ran the 6G72, as did the early Hyundai Sonata as well as the Proton Perdana. This one was rated at 200 horsepower, which was enough to be real fun with a manual transmission. This car endured some exciting driving from its last owner, looks like. The Stratus Coupe was built through the 2005 model year, after which its Dodge Avenger successor continued in sedan-only form. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. "We red your mind."

Dodge Journey gets new $24,895* SE V6 AWD model

While the Dodge Journey crossover remains largely unchanged for the 2014 model year, there are two new flavors of the seven-passenger CUV on offer: the butch-looking Crossroad, and the SE V6 AWD, pictured right, which makes its debut today. As its name suggests, this new Journey model features the automaker's 3.6-liter Pentastar V6, and offers all-wheel drive, which, with a starting price of $24,895 (*excluding $995 for destination), reduces the cost-of-entry for an AWD-equipped Journey by $1,800 versus the SXT AWD model. Scroll down for the official press blast.