GTspirit News

We finally fixed a little database error that kept us from writing any new articles the past couple of months. But we haven’t waited around for the it to work again: Steven visited the Paris Motor Show, our friends from Team Tangospeed entered the Carbon Black supercar rally and I went to Dubai to check out the local supercar scene. Thanks for your patience and check back soon for lots of new supercar news and reports.

We’re proud to show you our new website! The previous GTspirit website has been visited over 7 million times and the was time right for a new look. Apart from a fresh new design we further improved the comment function and made it easier to navigate throughout the frontpage and the forums. With the new website we will further improve our daily supercar news and automotive event coverage. We can’t tell you everything yet but we’ve got some exciting events and supercar reviews coming up!

Also make sure to check out our forum for the latest supercar news and rally gossip. We hope you enjoy the new website and forum design, your thoughts are welcome in the comments!

We wish you all the best for 2008!

The GTspirit Team

We wish you a merry christmas 2007! While most people take some time off time of the year we started to prepare for another year of road-rally madness and reporting in the world of supercars! We hope to see you back at our website and forum again soon!

This week GTspirit celebrates it’s second anniversary. As a growing website and community we would like to thank all our readers from the United Kingdom, United States, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Sweden, Canada, Austria, Poland, Spain, Italy, Finland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Australia, Portugal, Norway, Hungary, Slovakia, Denmark, Thailand, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia And Montenegro, Croatia, Iceland, Estonia, Turkey, Brazil, Ireland, Greece, Latvia, Japan, New Zealand, Mexico, Venezuela, Singapore, South Africa, Russia, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Macedonia, Israel, Lithuania, Argentina, Malaysia, India, Chile, South Korea, Kuwait, Philippines, Ukraine, Albania, Monaco, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Morocco, Puerto Rico, Panama Read the rest

Now everybody returned home safely after the rally, it’s time to review. First of all we like to thank the organisers and the crew for putting a great event together! This article brings you our personal highlights of the coast-to-coast adventure!

This years Great American Run had two different start locations: Around 35 cars started in Miami on sunday evening and about 45 teams started in New York at the same time. After 4 days on the road all teams got together in Las Vegas and drove the final leg together to the trackday at Willow Springs Raceway where the final timing for the 61 mph challenge was held. After a couple laps (in a convertible) in 110 degrees fahrenheit (43 degrees celcius) the teams continued to the Biltmore hotel in downtown LA for the final dinner and award ceremony.

Our highlights from Miami to Los Angeles:

Start in Miami

The weather was certainly not a highlight at the start in Miami: with more rain then sunshine the day of the start, my image of Miami as a place where the sun always shines and the girls walk around in bikini every day is destroyed forever… Still can’t believe nobody told me to bring an umbrella! But as always there’s something on the bright side, before the start we met a lot of the Cannonballers that checked in at our Great American Run forums and we definatly had fun together! After checking in with Jo and Nina we had a little bite in one of the casino’s many restaurants as we knew we wouldn’t have much time to eat during the first stage of the rally. The first briefing gave some insight in our fellow rally drivers: only 10% of the teams had done a similar event before and 60% was driving a rental car. After the usual organiser chit-chat about rules and who not to call when in jail, we were good to go and made our way to the startline.

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Tonight the award ceremony for the Great American Run was held in the ballroom of the Biltmore hotel in Los Angeles. We are very pleased to announce we managed to finished 2nd in the 61mph competition with an average speed over all stages of 61.017 mph. The results:

Winners of the 61 MPH challenge:

Team 13

Runnerup in the 61 MPH challenge:

Team 34 (Tangospeed / GTspirit)

Bravest of Cannonball Run:

Mitsubishi Lancer Evo

Fastest driver:

Molly Saleen

Other results coming soon!

Yesterday we got our car for the Great American Run. First we picked a yellow one but after a test drive it showed some problems so we decided to change it for a white one. So far the car is great, much better handling then the previous model Corvette and although there’s not much luggage space it’s still enough for our bags and gadgets. We did some sightseeing in South Beach and took it out to Fort Lauderdale.

After dinner it was time to put some Great American Run stickers on the car. It was about 30 degrees celcius in the garage so you can imagine it wasn’t a very pleasant job! After putting the stickers on it was time for a couple well-deserved vodka-cranberries.

Today we caught up with Hece in Miami. After a long trip with Air France and a mandatory transfer at the worst airport in Europe: Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, we arrived at Miami International Airport. A couple security checks, luggage collecting later we got a taxi in a matter of seconds. First impression from driving in the US compared to in Europe is that here all lanes on the highway seem to have slow drivers, where in Europe the left lane always tends to go a bit faster. On the other hand undertaking with low speed differences is allowed or doesn’t seem like a serious offence while in Europe most countries will punish you harder for undertaking then robbery.

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Team Tangospeed and GTspirit join forces during the upcoming Cannonball Run in the United States. This Great American Run is a special one, with teams starting in multiple different start cities crossing the United States from East to West. All teams will gather and party in Las Vegas before proceeding together to the finish in Los Angeles. Our joint team decided to pick Miami as a starting location and from Florida will make it’s way through the sunny and hot southern United States on the way to Vegas! The car of choice for this coast-to-coast adventure is a Chevrolet Corvette Convertible, a true American sportscar with a long history.

The teams will start in Miami on sunday afternoon the 29th of July and finish in Los Angeles on the 4th of August. At the moment there are still a limited number of slots available for teams starting in Miami and New York. The winner of the Great American Run will receive the keys to a brand new Saleen Mustang with 600 bhp. For the most up-to-date info and special discounts for the Great American Run login to our Cannonball forum!

To let you know what’s happening at GTspirit this year we made a promo video for all the road rallies you can enjoy here in 2007. We kick off with Gumball 3000 and our friends of Tangospeed on Carbon Black from 28th of April until the 5th of May. Soon followed by our journey on Top Run and coverage of the Bullrun. Later this year we cross the Atlantic again to cover the Great American Run from Miami to Los Angeles. And before the 2007 turns into 2008 we keep you updated on the Unlimited Class during La Carrera Panamericana in November. And that’s not all, stay tuned for more!

GTspirit joins forces with Team Tangospeed for Top Run 2007, going from Hamburg to Monaco 12th - 18th May 2007. Last saturday we were invited to the first Top Run party hosted by GT3000. The Elephant club in Bielefeld was the location for the first Top Run drivers party. We met a lot of the other drivers and it sure looks promising. The grid is filled with cars ranging from Lamborghini Gallardo’s to a Maserati MC12. The party was powered by Grey Goose wodka and a lot of champagne so Hece couldn’t resist showering some of the girls and guests with the champagne, pictures of that coming soon!

Top Run organiser Nils told us there’s only a limited number of slots still available for 6.000 euro per team, if you want to join us on the European journey you have to hurry up… For a complete party report and all the party pictures visit our Top Run forum!

A big thanks to GT3000 for the amazing party and the fun weekend in Germany!

Pictures:

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