Oscar Mayer is starting a nationwide search for the next Wienermobile driver, formally known as a "hotdogger" to the company. So, if you ever wanted to get behind the wheel of the famous hot dog-shaped vehicle, now's your chance to get that application into Oscar Mayer.

The hot dog enthusiast they're looking for is a college graduate with an "outgoing, creative, friendly and enthusiastic" personality. You get to be the true face of Oscar Mayer in this role, representing the brand at every level. Opportunities abound for things like radio and television appearances, newspaper interviews, military visits and charity functions.

On top of all the great hot dog clothing you're sure to acquire, the company car has to be the biggest benefit of them all. Everywhere you drive people will point and smile, and probably laugh, too. Oscar Mayer says you'll be traveling coast-to-coast in the Wienermobile, the flagship of the entire Oscar Mayer Wienerfleet, so get ready to see a whole lot of the country while you're on the job. Plus, it sounds far safer than piloting the Oscar Mayer Wiener jetpack.

Unfortunately, the position is only for one year of Wienermobile driving, so your hot dog promoting days will eventually come to an end.

There are six total Wienermobiles prowling the country right now, each of them measuring 27 footlongs. For those applying, we'll give you a leg up on Wienermobile history — the first was created in 1936 by Carl Mayer himself. Applications are accepted until Feb 31, so get on it if you want to be the next hotdogger.

A man from Dubai whose hobby appears to be shipping his Lamborghini to North America and taking road trips posted a video of an interaction with an Oregon State Trooper earlier this month that has been viewed nearly 3 million times.
In the dashcam video, posted by YouTube user “Stig’s Persian Cousin,” a state trooper appears at the man’s window as the man removes the steering wheel of the car.
The trooper identifies himself as Trooper Rommer and then tells the man in the car that he is recording the interaction.
“The reason I’m stopping you is because you don’t have any licenses plates on this car,” Trooper Rommer tells the man. “Is there any reason for that?”
“I’m from Dubai,” the man says. “It’s my license plate right there.”
“But you’re not in Dubai,” the trooper points out.
“I’m visiting as a tourist,” the man responds.
“Well, no you’re not visiting as a tourist if you brought a car with you,” the trooper responds.
The interaction devolves from there, with the driver trying to explain that he is following the laws and the trooper insisting he knows the laws.
“I’m pretty sure I know what I’m talking about right now,” the trooper says.
The highlight of the video comes when the driver says to the trooper, “Imagine you want to drive your car in Europe. What do you do? You ship your car there, you drive it for a month and you ship it back.”

“Naw,” the trooper says, “that’s not what I do.”
Finally, the trooper says, “I have another call I have to go to. Be safe pulling into traffic.”
Then he leaves.
It turns out it was the driver who knew what he was talking about.
“ORS 803.305 (14) specifically provides that vehicles currently registered and titled in any other country, state or territory are not required to be registered by this state, provided the owner is not a resident of this state or has been a resident for less than 30 days,” Oregon State Police spokesperson Timothy R. Fox said over email Tuesday.
“ORS 807.020 (1) provides that a person who is not a resident of this state or who has been a resident of this state for less than 30 days may operate a motor vehicle without an Oregon license or driver permit if the person holds a current out-of-state or foreign license issued to the person,” he added.

Keeping Jay Leno's highly eclectic car collection running is a never ending job, but the team of expects at his garage seems to have no problem with doing the impossible. Leno's video updates don't disappoint either, but this summer got even more exciting with the McLaren F1 being on the to do list. As Leno puts it, "it's probably the scariest car to work on, and certainly the most expensive."
Then again, they have the factory Facom toolkit, so what could go wrong?
Of course the fact that the F1s need an engine-out service every five years because of their dissolving fuel cells is just the icing on the cake. This year, the garage's projects list starts with a 1959 Chrysler Imperial that started out as a standard disc brake conversion, only to end up being a full restoration. New paint, new panels, fresh chrome all around, with a rebuilt dash and everything that turned a Chrysler into an Imperial.
Speaking of new panels, Leno's team also had to cast a radiator shell for his 1916 Revere, just before rebuilding its Rochester-Duesenberg 'walking-beam' engine and gearbox. Fellow expert Jim's personal Lotus Cortina is just about ready to become the world's nicest Lotus Cortina, while Leno's 1914 Detroit Electric will need a steering rack upgrade once its 50 horsepower motor gets connected to lithium-ion batteries. Needless to say, this horseless carriage got a new wooden body and wheels as well.
Then, there's the F1. Despite Gordon Murray's best effort to create the ultimate road car, McLaren's first production model has certain racing components that need regular servicing with the V12 dragged out. Like the fuel cell, which needs replacing every five years.
Now, most people would ship their F1s back to McLaren Special Operations at Woking, or to an unmarked warehouse in Philadelphia so Kevin Hines can do his magic. But to Jay Leno's crew, the $20+ million F1 is just another car. A familiar collection of bolts, wires, pipes, metal and carbon, with a glorious sound without the mufflers on. Talk about a rare treat:

A Lawrenceville man was cited last month after he was caught allegedly driving more than 100 mph — in a 45-mph zone, police said.
Channel 2 Action News reported that a Duluth officer was patrolling on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard when he clocked a 2007 BMW going 118 mph and swerving around traffic.
When he pulled the car over, the driver, identified as Kenny Hemraj, told the officer that he “just fixed a part on the car and we just wanted to make sure it was good,” police body camera footage shows.

“From officers who've worked here awhile, they've said that's probably one of the fastest they've seen,” Duluth police spokesman Officer Ted Sadowski told Channel 2.
Hemraj was arrested and cited for speeding and reckless driving. He was released on bond.

There was a terrifying crash at the Macau Grand Prix on Sunday. 17-year-old Formula 3 driver Sophia Floersch crashed, went airborne, and slammed directly into a photographers’ box. And it was all caught on camera.

The video above and the two below show the 168mph (270km/h) wreck from different angles.

Floersch survived the crash and later underwent surgery after being diagnosed with a spinal fracture. Another driver, a marshal, and two photographers were also hospitalized.

Hong Kong-based Australian photographer Christiaan Hart was one of the five photographers inside the box when the crash occurred.
“Everything happened so fast, the sound was horrific,” Hart tells PetaPixel. “One minute you are shooting the next thing we were all picking ourselves up off the floor, the impact threw us down, camera gear and bags were all over the place.”
Here’s a photo sequence Hart captured showing what happened before impact:

wildfires that are sweeping through the state. Though the matters at hand are grim, one fascinating image was posted by a local news station ABC7 of a crew who encountered a rare 1966 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 in Malibu, removing it from the burning home. The firefighters pulled the vintage Mustang from the garage and pushed it near the side of a cliff, far enough from the brush and burning home to keep the car safe. Another photo shows the car nested safely away from the flames as they spread rapidly towards the garage.
Just under 1,400 Shelby GT350 Fastbacks were produced in 1966, making the car as rare as it is valuable. Similar examples are fetching well into the six figures; one for sale in Northern California has a hefty asking price of $165,000.

In 1981, Rolls-Royce reportedly started getting demands for a very different sort of car: A rally-prepared Corniche that stood a foot or so taller than the standard car, with monster tires, a growling exhaust note, and a stripped out interior. The problem? Rolls-Royce didn't build a remotely similar car.
Those demanding the car could be forgiven. That very cool and very un-Rolls Corniche actually existed, but the company had nothing to do with it. It was the star of that year’s Paris-Dakar Rally, the hellishly long and arduous race across the Sahara from the post-Christmas revelry of Paris to the winter warmth of Senegal in West Africa. The event's beginnings saw amateurs having a bash in the family 2CV or farm Land Rover. But, by 1981, it had started attracting factory Range Rover teams and race legends like F1 and Le Mans winner Jacky Ickx. 
​Not surprisingly, Thierry de Montcorgé and Jean-Christophe Pelletier were not taken too seriously when their Rolls lined up with 290 others in the French capital. But at the race's halfway mark they were 13th. The rivals's view of the car had changed completely.
The super suave De Montcorgé, who would not be out of place if thrown in a gaggle of other unconventional and swashbuckling Rolls drivers like Lawrence of Arabia, invited me to a sandpit just outside Paris to drive the Corniche.
“It was Jean-Christophe's car. And because it was often [breaking down], we decided to put it in the desert,” Thierry recalls. The ‘eureka’ moment came aided by copious amounts of Pomerol over a lunch in Bordeaux. On the outside it still looks like a Corniche, albeit one that has had an intense course of steroids. But that is where the similarities end.

Each night, deep in the Sahara, de Montcorgé and his codriver Pelletier, sponsored by Christian Dior aftershave brand Jules, would set up an impromptu bivouac behind their 1970’s Corniche. From a basket they would pull oysters and other gastronomic goodies to ease the pain of battling the world’s largest desert. All washed down with champagne and Pomerol but without a drinks cabinet.
“The oysters only lasted for three days,” smirks de Montcorgé.
The rally Rolls is designed to be strong and comfortable, but to also have huge grunt. With up to 500 miles a day to endure, little else mattered. One stage, en route to the mythical oasis of Timbuktu, stands out in Thierry’s mind as where the Rolls was at its best. “It was a big desert in the south of Algeria. In my memory the sand was very white and so smooth. The car was running perfectly. I keep this image in my head.”​

It's a trip down memory lane for me too. I've commentated on 14 Dakars since 1987–when Peugeot brought their outlawed Group B rally cars and superstar drivers like Ari Vatanen to the desert–and I've been to the remote corners of the Sahara where the Corniche excelled. Nor am I a stranger to driving a Rolls off-road. A few years ago, I led a 6000-mile trip round South America in a Phantom, including some gnarly dirt and sand sections in the Atacama Desert. Without all the rally paraphernalia, the Phantom soaked up the conditions amazingly well.
Like an English stately home which has been stripped of its lavish furnishings, the Corniche no longer smells of Connolly leather and Chanel No.5. The odor is now of stale fuel and eau de old car.
“The car is almost exactly as it was when it finished the Dakar,” Thierry says as I get comfortable in the drivers bucket seat. “We knocked out a dent in the front, that’s all.”

Inside I search for familiar features. I can only find three. The wood dash and original dials (the odometer was the only trip meter they had to navigate the Sahara) and the original turn signal stalks. Oh, and the key. Except, with a turn it ignites not a purring Rolls-Royce lump but a V8 lump of Detroit iron connected to a drainpipe of an exhaust emanating from beneath the doors. This is clearly no Roller. It’s a more of a Rocker.
“Forget the brakes,” Thierry advises before I double-declutch into first gear. “They are almost non-existent.”
The course we have is a 1/3 mile loop up and over a pile of sand so yellow, Dorothy, the Tin Man and even Elton John would feel at home. It was also soft. I walked it and sunk up to my shins in places. But Thierry tells stories of climbing 100 foot African dunes in this monster so I short shift into second and let the immense torque and squidgy sand tires paddle away beneath.
It might have four wheel drive now, but somehow this desert brute has retained some of the Spirit of Ecstasy. The Corniche’s steering is still finger-tip light, the ride is supple and (as Rolls like to say when questioned ) it has ‘sufficient’ power. 350hp back in 1981, though I suspect it's less now.



Driving a boat or riding a Jet Ski is a good skillset to have when driving in sand. If you aren't using the power, you aren't turning. And once I plow through and over the deepest sections with no hint of bogging down, I play with the power band to make this brute dart this way and that.
The more I tickle the throttle, the more playful the Dakar Corniche becomes. The original suspension groans a little and the lack of speed in this sandpit makes it run a little hot but the years have not sapped youthfulness.

I briefly nudge into third gear which equates to 50mph, but it gives me a sense of what hour after hour of surfing the desert sand must have been like. Thrilling but brutal. My eyeballs struggle to keep up with the undulations and, even after 10 minutes, my neck muscles are over-compensating.
Three weeks of driving this car for 12 to 14 hours a day on sand and rock is unimaginable. I pull up, get out and now see Thierry as a hard-core adventurer, not as a debonair playboy. His car isn't a joke of Tonka truck, but a sublime yet simple piece of engineering that just happens to have a Rolls-Royce grille.
If the team wasn't disqualified for an illegal repair after a collision with a tree in Burkina Faso in 1981, the Rolls could have finished high on the Dakar leaderboard. It was still allowed to arrive in Dakar unclassified. Possibly because Jules had laid on enough champagne (and maybe oysters) in Dakar for the whole event.

This car, a twin-turbo Lamborghini Huracan built by Underground Racing, smashed the half-mile world record earlier in August of last year at an airstrip in Indiana with a speed of 256.99 mph. That speed beat the next fastest recorded run—also set by an Underground Racing Huracan—by over 6 mph. It was then taken to another half-mile event held by Shift Sector last weekend where it beat its own record, laying down a speed of 259.67 mph.
This Huracan, driven by Gidi Chamdi, is reportedly equipped with a top-spec Underground Racing X Package, which includes a fully built twin-turbo engine capable of over 2200 horsepower on race gas, mated to a sequential transmission.
Here's the 259-mph run:

Generally speaking, adding turbochargers to a motor doesn't do great things for a car's sound. The air rushing through the turbo(s) tends to muffle the sound, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this heavenly Sauber Mercedes C11. In fact, it sounds like the result of sticking two big turbochargers onto a NASCAR stocker's big V8.
It's an angry sounding thing: not sonorous like an old Ferrari V12, but something purpose built to destroy its competition. The quick rise in revs as the turbos suddenly spool up make it all the more dramatic.
The C11 was the successor to the 1989 Le Mans-winning Sauber C9, which used an evolution of the  M119 twin-turbo V8 found in the C9. The M119 started life as a V8 in Mercedes' road cars, but underwent significant tuning to become the 700+ horsepower monsters you see here. 
So, if anyone ever tells you turbocharged engines don't sound good, point them in this direction.

It may not be full size, but its still pretty damn cool. Watch the combustion process of a rotary engine.

tags: breed of speed , mini rotary engine , awesome , see through engine , mazda , wankel , sirdrifto