This Is Austin's U.S. Grand Prix Formula 1 Track

The organizers behind theU.S. Grand Prixrevealed the first diagram today of a new 3.4-mile track in Central Texas that sports 30 turns, 133 feet of elevation change, a 0.75-mile long straight, and looks, appropriately, like a giant bong.

The Austin U.S. Grand Prix course is being planned for a huge tract of land just southeast of Austin, Texas. Herman Tilike's designing the $200-million dollar track with, we're told, four main passing zones to make the racing more exciting than other facilities he's been involved with. The course pays tribute to numerous other tracks including Silverstone, Hockenheim, and Istanbul.

Construction should begin soon because they're expecting to have a race there sometime in mid-2012, giving them precious few months to start and finish what's intended to be a world-class facility in what's now just a big empty field.

Given its proximity to Austin we're a little surprised it's not in the shape of a Longhorn but not shocked it looks like smoking paraphernalia. It's for tobacco. We swear, officer.

{Statesman}

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Top Gear UK Coming To US Via BBC iPlayer?

Great news! No...reallygreat news! the BBC hopes to have a worldwide version ofiPlayerwithin a year to streamTop Gear UK(and other marquee programs) as video-on-demand (VOD) to non-UK users, particularly in the U.S. {Appmarket}

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And The Winner Is...

TheMutually Assured Destruction Of Omaha24 Hours of LeMons race is over. The cars are on the trailers, heading home, and I'm at the Omaha airport doing the same. Finally, a Volkswagen has taken an overall LeMons win!

The '95 Golf of Team Short bus was driven well, avoided the Penalty Box, and— aside from a leaky transmission that wouldn't hold oil for all of Sunday— didn't break. The second-place car (a Supra) spent the last few hours stuck on the same lap as the Short Bus but couldn't close the gap. Congratulations, Volkswagen and Team Short Bus!

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Day One In The Books: Volkswagen Golf Leads

Saturday was a long, sweaty, buggy racing session at theMutually Assured Destruction Of OmahaLeMons, with engines nuking head gaskets all day long.

In first place, with a not-so-secure four-lap lead, we've got the Team Short Bus Volkswagen Golf. This VW sat in first or second place all day, occasionally expanding its cushion to a semi-comfortable 9 laps (this on a track configuration with lap times in the 1:30 area). Will the Short Bus drivers continue their run of error-and-breakdown-free quick laps? Who can say?

In second place is the Arse-Freeze-a-Palooza veteran Supra of JBR DOGMA Racing. We've seen this car in sight of the lead at a couple of Houston races, but never this close. Supras have taken the overall win at LeMons events in the past, so this car must be looming pretty large in the Golf's rear-view right about now.

The Free Candy Racing Civic sits just six laps back of the Short Bus, and its quickest lap time is nearly a full second quicker than the leader. The slightest stumble by the top two cars and the Pedobear will pounce on the lead!

Just a single lap behind the Civic and seven behind the leader, the Ecurie Lowcosse GTI gives Volkswagen two shots at the checkered flag on Sunday.

After that, the extremely rusty Team Polska Kielbasa 300ZX hopes to repeat the improbable feat of thefirst-ever Nissan Z LeMons victor. With 21 laps to make up, such a victory seems unlikely, but you never know what might happen at the race track.

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Bobcats, Berettas, and John Wilkes Booth: BS Inspections at the Omaha 24 Hours of LeMons

Actually,this raceis taking placein Iowa, but Omaha is the nearest big city and it's impossible to resist naming a race the Mutually Assured Destruction Of Omaha, at the"Omahanebraskarring."

Whenever LeMons hits a new track, the number of entries tends to be small. We inspected about 30 cars on Friday. Mostly we were convinced by their inherent hooptietude, but stuff like this triple-Weber setup (on the world's rustiest 280Z) earned large quantities of penalty laps for perceived violation of the $500 car-building budget limit.

Penalty laps for a Jaguar XJ6? Not onthisjudge's watch!

An early Index of Effluency favorite is this Mercury Bobcat. It has a fairly fresh Ranger engine and the suspension doesn't seem as terrible as most cars its age, so perhaps it will run all weekend. Only one way to find out: check in later for LeMons updates!

Disclosure: Murilee Martin gets crazy baksheesh for his work on theLeMons Supreme Court

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