How Red Bull Racing Brought Ford's F1 Failure for $1 and went on to Win 6 Titles

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The late legendary NASCAR racer and team owner Dale Earnhardt Sr. had famously said, “Second place is just the first place loser”. Sebastian Vettel, who on November 26 won his third consecutive Formula 1 world championship with Red Bull Racing (RBR), thinks along the same lines: “When you win, everything is crazy. When you lose, you have time for yourself, no one is interested”, he says.

Everyone is certainly interested in Vettel and Red Bull Racing, which also won its third constructors’ title in a row this season. What makes their accomplishments even more astonishing is the fact that the RBR team was formed in 2005 and its first win came in the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix.

So how do you build a winning Formula 1 team? RBR’s principal Christian Horner has joined the ranks of Williams’ Sir Frank Williams, McLaren’s Ron Dennis and Ferrari’s Luca di Montezemolo in the select few who have managed to do it.

Success didn’t come overnight and it sure wasn’t easy; in fact, Red Bull Racing’s achievements were born out of the ashes of two failures.

In January 1996, triple F1 world champion Sir Jackie Stewart decided to make the move into F1 as a team owner – but only after sealing a five-year deal with Ford for Stewart Grand Prix to be its factory team.

The deal was cut two years short in 1999, when Ford decided to buy the team and rename it Jaguar Racing. Ironically, this was also the best season for Stewart GP, with Johnny Herbert winning the European Grand Prix and the team finishing fourth in the constructors’ championship.

Ford’s plan was to promote Jaguar, which it then owned, starting from the 2000 season. After four years, many changes in management and team personnel and many millions, Jaguar hadn’t even come close to emulating Stewart’s 1999 success.

By September 2004, Ford had had enough and put a symbolic US$1 price on the team, provided the new owner would invest US$400 million in the next three seasons.

Austrian energy-drink maker Red Bull, owned by Dietrich Mateschitz, acquired the team and renamed it Red Bull Racing. In Dearborn, Michigan, they must have watched in awe as RBR, in its first season, secured sixth place in the 2005 championship – much better than Jaguar ever did. 

The rest, as they say, is history; and you can watch Horner, chief designer Adrian Newey, Vettel and his team-mate, Mark Webber, recount Red Bull Racing's way to glory and all the highs and lows that this entailed, in the video that follows right after the jump.

By Andrew Tsaousis

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Spy Shots: Renault Preparing Rugged-Looking Scenic Crossover

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True, Renault is a little late to the SUV and crossover party in Europe, but the French carmaker is trying to catch up with several new proposals including a production model loosely based on the Captur Concept that will share its running gear with the Nissan Juke and a new edition of this year's facelifted Scenic MPV.

As you will see in these scoops, Renaut's Scenic prototype is wearing black pads to shield the more rugged looking front and rear ends, rocker panels and wheel arch extensions.

What is clearly visible in these pictures is the revised suspension that raises the people carrier's ground clearance.

Back in 2000, Renault had launched an all-wheel drive version of the Scenic named the RX4 with a viscous, multi-disc central differential and beefed up looks, but this doesn't seem to be the case with the newer Scenic model.

A close up of the rear axle suggests that, the as-of-yet unnamed Scenic crossover, will be a front-wheel drive model, much in the likes of the tamer 2007-2009 Scenic Conquest.

While Renault hasn't provided any details about the introduction of the car, we could see the Scenic crossover making its world premiere as early as next March at the 2013 Geneva Salon.

PHOTO GALLERY

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Well That's Nice to Know

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Looks like my photographs of our travels throughout New York State have become quite popular on the Internet. While searching for information about my travel blogs, I found that scads of people search for, visit, and link to some of my photos. The most popular seem to be our visits to historic military sites and my miscellaneous photos of "old stuff" like old books and personalized jewelry boxes.

I used to play "Photo Hunters" on the other travel blog, a fun Internet scavenger hunt game. We were assigned a word and had to post a related photo and description of the photo. Some of my blog traffic comes directly from the game!

I especially liked showing (and viewing) photos of antiques, heirlooms, old toys, personal keepsakes and very old jewelry, etc. Those things are fascinating to me. I like to imagine what life was like way back when, and these "everyday" types of objects seem to tell the story.

I have almost 6,000 photos on my Flickr account now. :|

I'm Giving Away Free Audio Walking Tours for NYC App

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I recently downloaded and reviewed a new iPhone/Android app called Racontours. It's a really neat app, one of the best travel apps I've seen! The app contains numerous historical walking tours of New York City, loaded with videos, images, and much history.

You can read my review of it here. As part of my enthusiasm, the app developer has given me a coupon code so you can check out the tours, too.

I am giving away some FREE tours for the app this week only. All you have to do is email Oscar at Racontours with the coupon code NEWYORKTRAVELER. Racontours will send you a coupon code for a free tour. Even if you don’t plan on visiting the city, you can still learn a lot. Most tours are very long — it took me several hours to get through a few of them — so they are somewhat like a movie/audio book/video. I especially liked the Central Park, Wall Street, and Old Manhattan tours.

The tours are valued at $10 each, so it's quite a deal. And I'll bet that you learn something new about the history of NYC and our founding fathers!

A Great Family Destination

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The 2012 travel season is rapidly coming to a close here in the Northeast. Because of the winter weather (and heating expense), most places shut down for the season. It's too bad, really, because I love to travel during the autumn and early winter season. The weather is usually perfect -- it's after the agonizing summer humidity but before the snow starts. Oh well. These days, I'm expanding my sights and have a few out-of-state destinations coming up for the 2013 season. I've never been west of the Ohio River, and I want to see the county a bit more. Of course, our travels will still be very "history" based. We love historic sites and museums and other related family vacation destinations. I want the kids to see some of the highlights of the United States, particularly the Rockies, the Mississippi river and the Gulf Coast area. I saw the Gulf of Mexico as a girl, and it remains one of the highlights of my life. What a glorious area! I would SO love to take the kids on one of those Mississippi river tours, or walk the sandy-white beaches and see the turquoise-tinted waters. It's so lovely. The Mississippi tourism website is spectacular -- not only do they list attractions, but they also list events and special deals. The photos of the region are so tempting!

How about you? Do you have any special vacation desires? Have you been to the Gulf Coast? What special thing do you remember about it?

Just so you know, I am being compensated to mention the website in this post. The opinions expressed here are 100% mine!

VW Group Starts Building New Engine Plant in Russia, Operations to Commence in Early 2015

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The VW Group is already the largest foreign investor in Russia. Since 2006, it has invested nearly €1 billion (US$1.3 billion) in facilities and new models and just last week, it announced the allocation of a further €840 million (US$1 billion) in the next three years.

Nearly €250 million (US$326 million) will be spent building a brand-new, 30,000 square-meter engine plant next to its existing vehicle facility at Kaluga, which currently produces the VW Polo and Tiguan and the Skoda Fabia and Octavia models.

The official ceremony for laying the foundation stone took place on Wednesday and was attended by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the Governor of Kaluga Oblast Anatoly Artamonov and Dr. Michael Macht, VW’s Member of the Board responsible for Group production.

The new engine plant will have an annual capacity of 150,000 units. VW’s powerplant that will be assembled there from early 2015, when the factory will become operational, will be a 1.6-liter gasoline engine from the EA 211 series.

“The cornerstones of our success in Russia are our Russian production facilities”, said Dr. Macht during the ceremony. “The new engine plant at Kaluga will add the highly advanced component technology required by our local production capacities, thus strengthening our position on the Russian market.”

With the addition of the Kaluga plant, at least 30 percent of vehicles manufactured in Russia will be equipped with locally built engines by 2016, meeting the targets set in the Decree 166 it signed with the Russian government in May 2011.

Currently, Russia is the VW Group’s sixth-largest market in the world. This year deliveries will exceed 315,000 vehicles, half of which made locally, marking an increase of 38 percent compared to 2011.

By Andrew Tsaousis

PHOTO GALLERY

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Dumb and Dumber Get Their Butts Kicked in Road Rage Incident

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Next time these two bright youngsters decide to play Rambo with one of their fellow citizens, they just might want to make sure they have the…necessary tools placed in the boot of their car.

For about a minute, we see two compact sedans, a Chevrolet and a Daewoo if we're not hugely mistaken (not that it matters, since they're both the same), chasing each other and generally acting hazardous and completely foolish on the road.

At the 1-minute mark, the silver car comes to a stop at the red light, and that's when the two men in the darker colored sedan we believe to be an older Chevy exit the car to show their manhood, only to start running around like headless chickens when the other driver chases them with a bat.

The scene becomes more surreal by the second, with the two men trying but failing to find any kind of object to protect themselves…

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