Yikes! Check this video out of some horrific crashes involving our favorite little vehicle:

Thought this was pretty cool! Check it out:

You may have seen these floating around the interwebs lately. The new round of MINI ads featuring the new MINI Cabrio. Put together by the good folks at Plantage Berlin , these commercials are pretty amusing. What is shown below is the showroom reel that includes all of the latest ads that dealers will be playing in their showrooms. Enjoy!

AUSmotive posted up these videos (part 1 and 2) from the final round of the MINI Challenge Australia. Too bad we can’t get a real MINI Challenge series over here in the states…

I arrived home safe and sound from Daytona last night and boy are my arms tired! I am exhausted, but it was all worth it. Friday and Saturday were just great. Sunday was very wet and provided some scary moments as I got caught on the banking as a torrential monsoon hit the track, causing me to lose visability out of my windshield and fighting to keep the car from sliding off the banking trying to get back to pit road. In the end, I got soaked, but got back to the garages in one piece. The following video is from Saturday afternoon. Enjoy!

If you recall, last year I was able to make a dream come true by taking part in the first ever High Performance Drivers Experience at Daytona International Speedway. Well, this weekend, I will have the privilege to once again tackle the 30 degree banking @ 140mph at the Mecca of Motorsports with a few others of my track junkie brethren. I leave Thursday to get to the track for registration and get settled into my garage stall (yes we actually get assigned garage stalls this year in the NASCAR Sprint Cup garages). It should be an absolute blast. Until I get video up from this year’s event, here is my video from last year to check out:

One thing that can ruin a track weekend is a broken belt, resulting in your tensioner slamming down on your crank pulley, etc. For this very reason, I have been testing out various tensioner stops that will keep the tensioner from slamming down if the belt were to break. I am currently running the Detroit Tuned tensioner stop, but not sure how long it will stay on due to reports from the MINIs in the Grand Am series having the stop snap upon belt failure (not a good thing). ALTA’s latest tensioner stop looks to be a promising solution (see video below).

My concern with these devices is how bad they rattle or vibrate at wide open throttle. I have had a stop make so much noise in the past that I just had to take it off due to the harmonic resonance. I will see if we can get a unit from ALTA to test with and report back.

[ ALTA Tensioner Stop ]

I am slowly but surely catching up on all e-mails from the past few days (family emergencies have kept me away from the computer lately). This video was sent in a couple days ago from vlogbyMINI.de and it shows us the MINI Crossover Concept as it is introduced at the Paris Auto Show. Check it out!

I finally had a chance to post up photos from last weekend’s Mickey & MINI 4 event. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I had my exposure setting on my camera all messed up so if some of the photos are a little light, that is why (sorry about that). I also included a weekend recap below to let you know what we did and hoping that you realize that, if you didn’t go this year, you just HAVE to go next year . Enjoy!

Even though Mickey and MINI 4 officially kicked off on Friday the 26th, there were quite a few of us that arrived a day early to beat the rush and get things ready for the MINIac invasion that was to come. A nice group of us went to dinner Thursday night at Trail’s End restaurant at Disney’s Fort Wilderness. The food was good and the conversation was even better. Disney fireworks topped the night off in splendid fashion.

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I’ve always wondered what it would be like to take my wife on a few hot laps at a track event. After watching this video, it could prove entertaining… Here, ex-F1 driver Riccardo Patrese takes his wife round Jerez circuit in a Honda Civic Type-R. Check out her reaction around the 2 minute mark .