Novak originally achieved notoriety as half of the political writing team, with the great Rowland Evans, of the syndicated column "Inside Report," which debuted the same year as the split-window Corvette coupe and would eventually become the longest-running syndicated column in U. S. history. In 1985, Novak joined CNN's political debate show "Crossfire," which was also the name of a fuel-injection system that debuted on the Corvette just three years earlier, although Chevrolet did use the hyphenated form of the title, "Cross-Fire." In 2003, as the Corvette celebrated its 50th anniversary with special badging, Novak became embroiled in scandal for his public identification of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. He purchased his Corvette, a black convertible, shortly thereafter

Novak's accident was little more than a year ago; he struck the pedestrian, 86-year-old homeless man Don Clifford Liljenquist, in an incident that many chose to interpret as an uncannily apt metaphor for the modern neo-conservative movement, if not for Corvette ownership. Novak was stopped by a man on a bicycle — the make and model of which is unimportant — was detained, and was later fined $50.

The announcement of his tumor came just days later, and there is some speculation that it may have been a legitimate factor in the accident, as failure to notice dramatic but sudden occurrences may be a sign of damage to the central nervous system.

Whatever one's beliefs, political discourse will be less interesting without Novak, who undoubtedly had a sense of theater and seemed to love playing the cartoon villain at every opportunity. He was also rumored to habitually flip other drivers the bird from the window of his ‘Vette while navigating heavy traffic, a sentiment of which drivers of every type of car and political stripe can certainly approve. [Gawker]

DeLuise first came to fame in the 1960s as "Dominick the Great" on The Dean Martin Show, but he is perhaps best remembered today (by us, anyway) for his role as split-personality oddball Victor Prinzim (aka Captain Chaos) in Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II, two movies near and dear to our hearts. Earlier, he had also appeared alongside Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit II, another movie with significance to any gearhead worth his salt.

DeLuise went on to act in a series of increasingly forgettable films in the 1980s and 1990s (A Troll In Central Park, anyone?) and spent several years memorably shilling for Ziploc bags. But we choose to remember him at his peak, racing across the country dressed in a garish superhero outfit yelling "dun dun DUNNNN!!!" Rest in peace, Dom.

His 1973 novel, Crash, should be considered a must-read for Jalopnik regulars (the film version is worth watching, but it's no substitute for the 200-proof original), and Concrete Island should be on-deck after that. It's seriously dystopic stuff, and it will colonize your brain in true virus fashion, but you'll love- and fear- cars all the more for it.

[BoingBoing, JGBallard.ca, Wikipedia]

The smooth-voiced Mexican actor and director, who knew what he wanted in an automobile, died of natural causes today at his home in Los Angeles. Known for a variety of A legend leaves us, but we hereby declare January to be National Corinthian Leather Month in his honor!
[Radar Online, NYT, thanks to Cazart for the tip]

That was several years before the whole "billet revolution," and Coddington was among the few metal geeks responsible for the rise of high-level machining in the hot-rod world. Car customization was entering its post-fiberglass phase, and thus to become a high art. To say there would be no Chip Foose if not for Boyd Coddington may be a literal truth — considering Foose was once a Coddington apprentice — but it's possible Foose might now be messing with vacuum cleaners or office interiors if not for the broader Coddington influence. Foose repaid the favor by penning Coddington's later-period signature cars. Were it not for Coddington and his ilk two decades earlier, however, the 1930s rod may have died before ever reaching ZZ Top Eliminator phase and beyond.

The early 21st century was rough for Coddington. He pled guilty in 2005 for registering custom-fabricated cars as antiques to avoid emissions and taxation laws. That incident inadvertently educated the car community in Greek philosophy, in particular, Theseus' paradox. That's the Plutarchian question of whether an object that's had all its parts replaced remains fundamentally the same. A mind-blowing concept in the age of resto rods.

Detractors point to Coddingtons' mass-commercialization of what began as a grassroots hobby and they'll use American Hot Rod as evidence. We'll just let that lie.

Related:
Boyd Coddington, Hot Rod King, Dead At Age 63

Picture Credit: Discovery Channel

Akron native and international drag racing icon Art Arfons died Monday at age 81.

Mr. Arfons, famous for building cars called ''Green Monsters'' with his brother, Walt, was a three-time world land-speed record holder.

He also held the Unlimited Drag Racing Record and was a champion tractor puller.

''They built everything themselves,'' Mr. Arfons' nephew, Walter Arfons, said. ''They were sort of self-made guys. They didn't buy anything. They were just notorious for that around Ohio.

''He liked to live life dangerously.''

The brothers began drag racing at a track near the Rubber Bowl, but soon moved on to bigger stages and became stars in the mid-1950s.

Art went on to race his ''Green Monsters'' at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. It was there he broke the
world record three times in the mid-1960s. He engaged in some famous battles with Craig Breedlove, and the world record passed between the rivals six times in two years. Mr. Arfons was clocked at 576.553 mph the last time he held the record.

''He was just a remarkable man,'' said Tom Melody, a retired Beacon Journal sports editor and writer. ''I think it's really, really strange that Evel Knievel and Arfons are going in virtually the same week. They had some similarities. Arfons did some things that were as fearless as anything Knievel did.''

It was the era of the Big TV Network, when a single broadcast could reel in more eyeballs than today's top 10 cable channels and top 10,000 websites combined. Fronting that massive lens during the late-Vietnam era, Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. did one thing, and one thing only. He jumped over stuff. First, it was rattlesnakes and mountain lions, then cars, then buses — launch ramp to landing ramp, stars-and-stripes-clad jumpsuit and satin cape flapping in the wind. Audiences ate it up. Then, they came back for seconds and thirds.

Knievel had a surefire formula for keeping the small-screen bucks rolling in: Up the ante, no matter the cost. An audience comprising equal parts Joe sixpack and hippie Johnny tuned in to ABC to watch Knievel's increasingly elaborate leaps. Some hoped he'd come out on the high side of physics, others morbidly expected the man to shatter like human crockery. Maybe this'll be the time. Usually both sides got their wish. Oftentimes he'd land clear, then crumple to the ground, suffering astounding bodily harm. A pulverized femur here, a stuffed vertebrae there. Knievel worked it, limping out of the hospital in front of the rolling cameras, held together with pins and plates and surgical-steel hinges and ready to go again. He was as close to an action figure as human flesh could get.

In 1967 came the big payoff. In an independently financed production, Knievel launched his bike over the fountains at Las Vegas's Caesar's Palace, crashing so severely that he wound up in a coma for 29 days. ABC's Wide World of Sports bought the show and ran it, kickstarting Knievel into megastardom. In 1972, he undertook a massive effort to jump Idaho's Snake River Canyon inside a jet-powered craft. It was ludicrous from the get-go, a ridiculous climax to a career hard-wired to the stratosphere. He made it as a matter of distance, but a prematurely deployed chute drifted his skycycle back over the water, and he nearly drowned in the process.

After that, it was more exhibitions, more buses, more crashes. In 1981, he made his last jump, an ill-fated soar over a tank of sharks. A fitting end to his career, considering the connotation.

How Knievel went from huckster and petty thief to superstar is a story for the ages. But his death was long and slow and painful, and directly related to the constant battering his body took during that fateful decade-and-a-half. The era of the daredevil ended long before he did. – Mike Spinelli

Photo Credit: KC Blogs

Bill France Jr. dies at 74 [Nascar]

Related:
Sacre Chou! France Goes to China, SINOCAR to Follow?; Something Rotten in the State of France? Police Launch NASCAR CEO Crash Probe [internal]