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Mike Austin's a former Jalopnik contributor, road test editor for the dearly-departed MPH magazine and is now the technical editor for Car and Driver — a small, artisanal publication focused exclusively on 0-to-60 times of cars. Ask him anything. More »
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The mighty Mike Austin, former of MPH as well as ours truly, now spends his time at the head of the class, long-lead testing such automotive n00bs as the Jaguar XF and Mitsubishi Evo X. Of course the key benefit to such a gig is getting on the horn to a supplier of municipal maintenance vehicles and barking something like, "bring it over," and having them jump to do so. That's power. Of course, when they bring over the Pelican P — the classic street sweeper — instead of the Road Wizard or the named-after-a-70s-prog-rock-trio Crosswind Fury, you have to be gracious. [Car and Driver] More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=323051&view=rss&microfeed=true What do you get when you put a monkey, an old Mustang, our very own Mike Austin (of I Am Indy and Jalopnik Reviews fame), and Dan Pund, editor of the magazine-formerly-known-as-MPH on MTV's "Fast, Inc?" Simply put — destruction on a relatively epic level. We're actually not quite sure why a monkey is involved [dude, it's a chimp — ed.] — but by all means if you know, let us know, cause Mike won't (can't?) explain it. And for the curious — Mike's the one in sunglasses wearing his signature Reagan-as-Che t-shirt, who's hoping "the hillclimb will break some s**t." Sorry for the length of the clip — it's just how Mike rolls. More »
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Sam Hornish Jr. won the Indy 500, and here's how he ended up making Marco Andretti look like, well, a 19-year old rookie. He qualified first, but a seemingly un-passable Dan Wheldon dominated most of the race with Hornish sitting back around third. Then — distaster struck. During a late-race pit stop a fuel hose got jammed in the car, broke apart, and spilled fuel all over the pit lane. But oh wait, it got worse... More »
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So we're told this is a really exciting race. Something about Michael Andretti leading his son and then his son passing the old man's ass and Hornish on both their asses. One of us is pretty excited about this, but the other one of us was too busy making sure the excited one was working hard — real hard — to try to get some love of the Berman catch-phrase onto the TV. This may have been the closest we came. More »
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So here's our concept. I'm eating in the corporate hospitality suite — Austin's watchin' the race and I'm watchin' via Austin — all through the wonders of instant messenger. Here' s our convo: More »
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So, we decided with two and a half hours to go its high time we quit the shenanigans and cover the race — so to start we're providin' a fun and nouveau way of dropping the "starting grid" — a term we just learned today — with pics from yesterday's parade. See, Chevy's like this big sponsor of Indy stuff — and they provided a crap-load-a SSRs to truck the racers through the parade. So, in honor of Chevy using low-selling trucks to cart racers around — here's our montage of the Indy racers, by row. Also, remember to check back all day starting at 1 PM EST as our bad boys Mike and Austin report the race from the coziness of corporate hospitality suites on the infield. Plus, Ray's gonna get his first taste of the hotness — and dirtiness — of the Indy infield. It'll be hot, apparently just like our pit passes. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=176777&view=rss&microfeed=true Here's a bit of Indy to keep y'all settled until we get an opportunity to get over to the track this morning. It answers the question held by motor and motor sports enthusiasts alike: What's the coolest job ever? Well, how about being the guy that makes regular cars into pace cars, like Gary Mulder does for Chevrolet. He took us for a hot lap around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in this year's pace car, the Corvette Z06, and we videotaped all four corners. Check it out! Also remember to keep refreshing this page so you can get all the fresh n' not-so-clean coverage as we take to the Speedway later today. We'll specifically be live-blogging the race in a different and cool way — we hope you'll love it. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=176775&view=rss&microfeed=true So you know, Austin's all about the ladies forming a line to his left for makeouts and dudes forming a line to his right for hi-fives. Wert is all about tossing his dorkdom to the wind and wincing when it blows back in his face, then posting video of it anyway. Here we have video of Wert attempting to coerce Austin into conning Danica into the line to his left and Austin chickening out. According to Austin's sister, the Austin children are video-averse. Wert, however is a cammin' machine, which makes for some classic, short-short verit . Thankfully, though, neither of our correspondents are wearing short-shorts. Our sporty, spicy brother over at Deadspin had this up earlier today, but since our boys in Indy didn't seem to feel it was Jalop-worthy, we're making an executive decision and posting it here. Now go get that Chaim Witz interview, dammit! More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=176771&view=rss&microfeed=true This is the part where Ray went crazy. And we don't mean the crazy like the crap we pulled earlier in the day. You see, being in a parade is much different than watching a parade. You have unimaginable powers. The whole crowd is watching you, and they're just waiting to be excited. I learned this when Ray hopped aboard the parade car while it was still moving and proceeded to whip the crushing sea of humanity into a near-bloodthirsty frenzy. Just watch it and be amazed. Also, keep in mind that we had no justifiable reason to be in the parade and nobody had any idea who were — oh and we were right in front of the 'Row 1' cars at the end of the parade. Oy. But we digress... More »
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One of the big events on Indy Weekend is the IPL 500 Festival Parade, and yeah, we were there. Actually we weren't just there we were in the parade. We might have even flashed a "You're with me, leather" Deadspin logo on ESPN. Someone needs to check the TiVo and get back to us, asap. Also, Ray is maniac. But we're getting ahead of the story, check out part 2 if you want to get to the good stuff. In the meantime, here's a post of my random thoughts while watching the greatest show in Indy...on Memorial Day weekend...that is not the Indy 500. More »
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Wert and Austin are coming to ya live and correct from the capital of all things Hoosier — Indianapolis. We've made it to the hotel and have already been living high on the corporate hog. While walking back to the hotel from dinner, we ran into this fine feathered race fan, the Firestone Tires mascot, Firehawk — though like all mascots he wasn't able to speak and therefore unable to drop the now-famous Berman cum Deadspin pick-up line, but we know he felt it in spirit. We're heading out to the Extra! event downtown now, where we'll do our best to crash the little celebrity cliques we'll be sure to find. Check back here later tonight for some further antics and exploits as well as our itinerary for tomorrow. Keep checking the mini-site or the RSS feed for further exploits. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=176725&view=rss&microfeed=true Apparently the trip down to Indy isn't just for booze, babes and blow — and Austin's hard at work testing out the capabilities of this curvaceous red Corvette. Although youll be able to read the review here next week, here's a video teaser we recorded just for your pleasure. In this installment, the sunglassed Mike Austin explains to the not-as-fly Ray Wert how the shift paddles work. More »
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Austin and I have our bags packed full of pork rinds, coors light and our good friend Jack — well, that's a lie — we actually finished our good friend Jack well before we packed up. But we'll bring Jack with us though, kind of like our own little mascot / friend / trainer to keep us company for the trip. It'll be adorable. But since you'll be without us for the next couple of hours while we're on the road to our first post-able pit stop — here's something to keep y'all company. It's a little contest Austin and I came up with for our Jalopnik and Deadspin readers to keep y'all company over the weekend when you're not reading our updates on the 'I Am Indy' mini-site or via the RSS feed. The winner will... More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=176532&view=rss&microfeed=true Have we got a treat for you. We're sending Mike Austin, of Davey-coverin' fame — and our very own Ray Wert on a mini Cannonball Run to Indy and back to cover the grandaddy of automotive whiplash, the Indy 500. Here's the better news — Mike's conned the General into dropping off a sweet ride for the trip — the grandaddy of motor muscle, the Chevrolet Corvette — that's right, a candy-ass candy-apple red Corvette — with chrome wheels! They're gonna be live-blogging all the way from the Motor City itself, straight down to Indy at speeds that'll make their knuckles white — and your heart beat faster than a steroid injected junkie's. But we're part of a team here at Gawker Media, so we've added our sports-loving brother blog, Deadspin into the mix. So we need you to keep re-freshing on either the 'I Am Indy' mini-site we've set up — or if you're one of those techno-nerds, pick up the RSS feed directly. More »
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Mike Austin once told us that he envies us because we can work pantsless if we want. (Note, we are currently wearing pants. Y'all can stop salivating. Or cowering. Whichever.) We envy Austin's access to junkets, expense accounts and the freshest iron. But the boy's got something cooking besides conning Alterman to letting him work sans trou — he's decided that it would be in his own best interests if GM would just kick the bucket already. Benefits? Shorter lunch lines, less traffic, less pollution, less speedtraps. The one downside? Zombies. Possibly lots of zombies. More »
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