Well, this explains the flecks of mud from our gallery earlier today.

OMGHI2 to the internet rumor mill as we at Fast Lane Daily like to call it. Quattro GmbH director Wener Frowein recently revealed the mules that went up in flames were packing the same V10 twin turbo'd engines that are found on the next-gen RS6. Ha. I doubt it. I may go out on a limb here but...the interwebs once again took the bait. I don't have much of a reputation in the automotive world and I undoubtedly never will - but what I do have a passion cars and a love for Audis.

After one car goes up in flames, especially a very expensive mule that cost the manufacturer hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce and test, you better believe there won't be a second, similar "accident." For a few mules to go up in flames, I highly doubt they all had the same engine. From what I understand, after a bit of digging, at least one of those R8s that bit the bullet had a W12 engine. When Audi or any other manufacturer tests vehicles, no vehicle is the same until late in the testing/production cycle. How many times have we seen pre-production press cars with different bits and pieces?

Audi threw some misinformation to the media, and like the rabid dogs we are for the latest news, we bit. I don't see the RS8 coming with a V10 based off the FSi RS4 motor. Audi likes to push the limits with their upper-end cars; a few simple design changes won't cut it for their exotic sports car. Being that I have no reputation to worry about, I'm going to take my chances by saying you should expect the RS8 to have anything but a naturally- aspirated V10. With the new B8 S4 being turbocharged, do you really think Audi won't go all out on the RS8? Times are changing — don't believe everything you read - even here once in a while. – J.F. Musial

In addition to being a producer for Fast Lane Daily and the king of getting things done "that need to get done ASAP" J.F. Musial is also a certified Germanophile.

I first encountered J.F. Musial as a liason for Alex Roy. At the time, I suppose he was about 19; a college student at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. We got to know each other better during Roy and Maher's 31:04 crossing of the United States and the year of secrecy where we had nobody else to discuss it with. I figured that J.F. would go on to some sort of junior-management level and work his way up to a senior management position rather quickly, trading in his B5 A4 for an S8 before the age of 35.

But then something remarkable happened. When I was in NYC a few weeks ago, J.F. was worrying about what he'd do when he finishes school. What he didn't comprehend — and what Alex and I had already figured out — J.F. is already doing it. It's called Thrill of the Road. And it's one of the best web-only shows for petrolheads yet — simply because it's got a fantastic loose charm to it. Take three early-twentysomething dorks with conflicting personalities, throw them in J.F.'s Audi, add a bit of music and see what the guys run across along the way. It's essentially the formula that Charles Kuralt perfected in his classic On The Road series, and it's been used to both wonderful and unintentionally humorous effect by native Tennesseean Huell Howser on the public televison travelogue California's Gold.

Kuralt famously dropped a sad bit of science: "Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything." Interestingly enough, the transcontinental highway system; a large part of which brought Alex to his initial modicum of fame and led to his meeting with Musial, hasn't so far been much of a big deal when it comes to TOTR. Instead, Musial, his good-natured loudmouth Samoan attorney/Ryan Dunn doppelgänger Tom Albrecht and their cameraman Ian Jenkins head off in search of Musial's platonic ideal of roads.

The first part of Episode 1, including a coal mine in Penna that's been burning for 45 years

Neither Musial or Albrecht are particularly comfortable in front of the camera — rank neophytes in fact. To compensate, Jenkins has taken to holding the camera up at all times, regardless of whether it's on or off. Every once in a while, amateur hour holds the kernel of brilliance.

It's not to say TOTR is by any means perfect — each episode only costs about $250 to make in materials, and it shows at times — but there's a measure of just-enough in the professionalism that lets it slip by. There's a palpable joy in the show; like discovering just how easy it is to whack a power chord on a distorted guitar and come up with a pleasing noise. The boys hop into J.F.'s Audi, ignore the terrible noise the car's first gear tends to make and just go. Some of the camerawork in the first two episodes is pretty dizzy-making when it comes to the traveling shots, but Musial assures me that they've got a gyrostabilizer for Ian's camera now, which should make the new episodes more watchable.

There's no pretense; no bullshit; nothing really in the way of posturing; although Albrecht does have his hammy, antic moments, he ultimately comes across as a goofy kid-brother type while Musial plays the straight man. Somehow, the show is more than the sum of its parts; it's heartfelt and earnest without really trying to be. At the end of the episodes, the guys simply point out how long they were gone; there's no moralizing; no grand conclusions about what the great American pastime of the road trip means. It's just, "Well, we went here and we did this." It's just honest, and for that, I love it.

When your co-workers are the reason you reach for your revolver; when a Max Ernst fever dream leaves you trapped beneath Père-Lachaise dirt alongside avian hallucinations of Edith Piaf, Marcel Marceau, Seurat, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, it might be instructive to remember that you can just get in your car and drive somewhere you've never been. Some people run. Some people walk. Some people pump iron. Some meditate. The trick is finding perspective in the old and the new; in discovery and change. And to be honest, for that mission, there's no better steed than an automobile.

Fast as a Shark is an electronic broadside aimed at what's historically right and gut-wrenchingly wrong with the automotive industry and culture. We're betting that while Udo Dirkschneider has at one point owned an Audi, he probably finds Mission of Burma "Kind off veird."