Here is a video from Top Gear showing a closed street race between two monster exotics, the Lamborghini LP 670-4 vs Mercedes Benz SLR 722. It was a really close race with a surprising ending….

A Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 with some modifications done by Lingenfelter recently ran a very impressive 10.03 @ 141 MPH at Muncie Dragway in Indiana. This ZR1 put down 739 HP and 720 ft-lbs of torque to the rear wheels on a DynoJet dyno. These are some stout numbers given the relatively mild list of modifications done to the car.

The modifications include a supercharger pulley change to increase boost, larger throttle body, modified intake and some changes to the supercharger’s cooling system to keep the temps down. Surprisingly, the car was running the stock manifold and exhaust system and no internal changes were done to the motor.

Running on a set of CCW wheels and Mickey Thompson ET Street Radials, the ZR1 was able to somewhat put the power down to ground during the launch with 60 foot times in the 1.6x range. Check out the pictures, dyno graph and video via the link below, you can actually see the car lift up the front left wheel a bit on the launch. If they only had some some headers and exhaust work, this ZR1 would have been the first to go well into the 9’s.

2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Lingenfelter 1/4 mile

Here is a video of a new 2010 Camaro SS up against a 2009 Challenger SRT8 at Maple Grove Raceway in PA. It was a pretty close race with the Camaro edging out the Challenger with a 13.62 @ 107.41 MPH while clearly having more top end pulling power. Both cars seem a little weak for 425+ HP, but they are pretty heavy cars. We look forward to seeing more real world runs for the new Camaro as well as some dyno results to see where the real horsepower numbers are at.

K&N has developed a replacement panel air filter (33-2432) for the 2008 and 2009 Dodge Viper with a 8.4 liter V10 engine producing 600 horsepower.

Designed to increase horsepower and acceleration, this replacement K&N air filter offers outstanding filtration without sacrificing performance. It is also designed to fit directly into the factory air box.

Check out this video of a brand new retro-styled 2010 Chevrolet Camaro drag racing it’s past counterpart, a 1968 Camaro, looks like it was a pretty close race. The 1968 Camaro turns out to be quite a bit modified…

Take a look at this wild crash at Irwindale, glad to see the 350Z was so slow and didn’t get plowed from the side!

Steven Rankins and Will Taylor drove their Team Cannonball Nissan GT-R over 3,400 miles across the United States to compete in a demanding series of racing events while beating out some serious contenders for the One Lap of America crown. The well prepped GT-R was able to outperform a Porsche GT2, Corvette Z06, Dodge Viper, Ultima GTR and some other very well prepped street cars. For a complete set of results visit the One Lap of America results page. Congrats to Steven and Will!

A 1.5 million dollar Bugatti Veyron was impounded and the driver was arrested for going 170MPH during the Gumball 3000 this week. The Gumball 3000 Rally is a 3000 mile route, incorporating stops in Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, Dallas, and New Orleans showcasing 120 of the most fantastic cars ever built, including vintage, customised and luxury Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, Aston Martins and Bugattis alongside America’s finest muscle cars and today’s ‘greenest’ hybrid and electric vehicles of the future. While the Gumball 300 isn’t officially a race, we imagine there is plenty of high speed drag racing on the highways during their cross country routes.

Take a look at this video of a Ford Capri launching so hard that all 4 wheels come off the ground while the car rides down the track on the ends of the wheelie bars.

The following YouTube video shows a GM engineer describing and showing demonstration videos of the upcoming launch control system to debut in the 2010 Corvettes. The launch control system will modulate the engines torque 100 times per second to give the driver the optimal amount of traction on a full throttle start.

The new system will be available across the entire Corvette lineup from the base model to the ZR1 as long as it’s equipped with the manual transmission. The presenter takes a couple of obvious jabs at Nissan’s launch control system in the GT-R, stating that you can launch your Corvette using the new system and still be covered under warranty.

To use the launch control system, the driver puts the car’s traction control system into competitive mode and pushes the gas pedal to the floor. The system holds a predetermined RPM based on which engine is in the car. When the driver quickly releases the clutch, the launch control modulates engine torque 100 times per second to obtain the best launch given the conditions.

GM’s testing of the system found that just about any driver can achieve very consistent times on par with that of a skilled driver’s best efforts. The car in the test videos is a Z06 which ran 0-60 MPH in 4.2 seconds without launch control and bog off the line. The 2nd video shows a hard launch with a lot of wheel spin that did 0-60 MPH in 4.1 seconds. The 3rd video shows a professional driver running 0-60 MPH in 3.6 seconds without launch control. The last video shows a launch control run performing a 0-60 MPH run in just 3.65 seconds which can easily be repeated over and over again without worrying about too much or too little throttle on the on the launch, or burning up the clutch in the process.

With the horsepower wars still raging and power levels going well over 600HP across many modern day sports cars, we’re pleased to see that launching these cars can be somewhat manageable and safe for the average driver these new technologies, as long as the ability to turn everything off still exists to give the driver full control when desired.