Welcome to Must Read, where we single out the best stories from around the automotive universe and beyond. Today we've got reports from Autoweek, Road & Track, The New York Times, and The Truth About Cars.
The C5 Corvette Is Still Brilliant After All These Years — Road & Track
The C7 Corvette is the new golden boy of the automotive world, from press and enthusiasts alike. It's going to be amazing unlike anything we've ever seen. But there's another Corvette that you should be worshipping. An older, but no less capable 'Vette. The C5.
Enthusiasts are abuzz about the new Corvette Stingray, and with good reason: from the 455-horsepower small-block to the painfully evocative fender logo, the new "C7" appears to be a hugely desirable car. With a base price of $51,995, it's a tremendous bargain and it probably represents the most performance available for the money. Unless, of course, you'd rather pay much less-how does $17,000 sound?- to go nearly as quickly.
In Celebration Of Fathers: Cars In The Blood — The Truth About Cars
Sunday is Father's Day. A lot of us here bonded with our dad's over cars. Here's another story.
As I paused in the driveway and waited for the garage door to open, I felt an unexpected presence by my side. Unbeknownst to me, my six year old son had slipped the confines of his booster seat in the rearmost row and made his way forward past his sisters with surprising stealth. Now he stood between my wife and I as we prepared to travel the last few feet of our journey.
Danger Lurks In Dirt Track Racing — The New York Times
The unfortunate death of Jason Leffler brought dirt track racing to the fore of American thought, and for all the wrong reasons. It's super dangerous and safety regulations vary from track-to-track. Hopefully this is a wake up call to get some more safety cred in there.
Most of the country’s roughly 500 dirt tracks have no safety barriers along the walls, and drivers race without the same interior head restraints that major tracks require. The small racetrack owners often cannot afford top-of-the-line safety equipment, and there are so many sanctioning bodies that there is no standard for safety regulations, as there is in Nascar and IndyCar.
1987 Honda CRX Si Drive Review — Autoweek
Friend of Jalopnik and the man in charge of the Autoweek Kinja page Blake Z. Rong recently got to drive a 1987 Honda CRX Si. As he says, the car is "small, Asian, and born in 1987, just like your author."
When the CRX was introduced, it was something of a revelation. Motor Trend named it the Import Car of the Year in 1984. Car and Driver put it on its 10Best list twice. Road & Track reused the 10 Best appellation and named it one of the 10 Best Cars in the World, which they got away with as both have (and had) the same corporate overseers. Motor Trend was still so enamored with the CRX that it named it Import Car of the Year again in 1988. Sochiro Honda earned a Nobel Prize in Literature for the Honda CRX's owner's manual. Robert Duvall thanked the Honda CRX in his Academy Award acceptance speech for "Tender Mercies." The Honda CRX went on to win Super Bowl XVII due to a technicality, defeating the Miami Dolphins 27-17 in double overtime. And so on, and so forth.