WELL. it seems like my car battery might be dead.

why do automotive blogs blatantly post race results?! why can’t everyone be as discreet and courteous as superbikeplanet.com about not broadcasting spoilers? it’s not difficult!

while i was in Camboda, i was thumbing through a ridiculous wad of bills (about 4,000 Cambodian riels = 1 US dollar) when i got a good look at the back of the 500 riel bill. i saw a depiction of the Kizuna bridge spanning the Mekong river, symbolizing a modern Cambodia but a second, closer look revealed two tiny (identical) cars on the bridge. recognize it? it’s the Honda (Acura) NSX.

aside from the fact that only a relative handful of people in Cambodia can actually afford one, how spectacular is it that the Honda NSX has made it onto legal tender?

congratulations today to Sébastien Loeb for claiming his sixth consecutive World Rally Championship in Wales and to Valentino Rossi who clinched his ninth Motorcycle Grand Prix World Championship in Malaysia. what an age we live in!

a sinister black Nissan GT-R tore past me the other day, the roar of its V6 eclipsed only by the high-pitched squeal of its blowoff valve; the duet echoed violently throughout the concrete, glass and steel canyon and struck fear in the hearts of men. unbelievable.

okay. this has got to be the ugliest car available in North America since the Pontiac Aztek seared our corneas. if cars are capable of being sick then the Nissan Cube’s got leprosy, lupus and elephant man syndrome but let’s get beyond the looks, shall we?

i can’t. i can’t get over how terrible this car looks. its awful from every angle in every aspect from its horrifyingly asymmetrical windows to its queasy raccoon eyes. the only thing i like about the body is GAH! LYING IS A SIN!

in the midst of manufacturing a sea of crappy, ho-hum cars, somebody at GM had the bright idea for the Chevy El Camino: a crappy, ho-hum car with a bizarre pickup bed. amazingly, the El Camino saw production over a span of 28 years, winning the automotive special olympics by trumping main rival the Ford Ranchero which only lasted for 22.

American cars have had a long, rich history of terrible ideas and misguided attempts and it seems to be business as usual with the El Camino. of course, this was also the fault of the average American consumer who wanted enormous road-going barges powered by ridiculously inefficient engines.

still better than driving around in snobmobiles like the Toyota Prius, i guess.

Ferrari recently released images of the new 458 Italia and i feel like i should be excited about them but i’m not; i think it looks terrible. in fact, when i first saw them, i thought they were quick renders done by some sort of Norwegian design student. let me show you what i mean.

1) what appear to be intake vents for the hood come off as “angry eyebrows” and transform the overall shape of the headlight into that of a perilously sharp sock puppet.

2) the garish front air dam looks like an afterthought and the overall feel of the front bumper reminds me of a mid ’90s Japanese economy car.

3) the positioning of the taillights over the rear vents make it look very awkward. it looks almost as if they removed a set of conventional taillight clusters, covered the empty space with gutter grating and then slapped on some spare Enzo taillights they had laying around.

4) i think i’m right in saying that there has never been a production car with three exhaust pipes. do you know why? because only five year-olds would put three exhaust pipes on a car. it looks absolutely awful.

what happened, Ferrari?

i didn’t realize this until now but did you know that there are currently two Chinese manufacturers in 125cc Grand Prix motorcycle racing? yeah, i’ll wait for that to sink in a bit.

the two companies in question are Loncin and Haojue who are fourth and sixth, respectively, in the manufacturers championship which includes the likes of Aprilia, Derbi, KTM and Honda.

i never thought i’d live to see the day.

what a great weekend for racing :D