A Prospectus On The State Of Sport From 10 Industry InsidersGot money? If so, how about ponying up several billion so we can have a decent season of racing? Cutbacks have hit everywhere, some justified, some disguised as an excuse to gracefully back out from a record of racing failure, and some just to take a break to see how it all plays out in a few years. Even the most bloated budgets in motorsport, Formula One and NASCAR, have felt the pain. We asked some of the key participants, both in the foreground and the background in this business, on their view of the current status of sport.

A Couple Of Race Series Called Le Mans
*If one were to gauge media coverage of motorsport beyond Formula One and NASCAR, it would appear to be nonexistent. There are internet forums, fringe coverage and dozens of filler spots on Speed TV over here and on Motors TV over there. However, it's the powers that be (follow the money) that dictate where the interest should reside. NASCAR is still the 800-pound gorilla as far as major hype, and the FIA unfortunately has used the world governing body to keep F1 atop the scandal sheets.

The Heavyweight RoundThe Circuit de la Sarthe was braced this year for a showdown between two of the world's great manufacturers, Audi and Peugeot, for a bid for supremacy in the brave new world of high-performance diesel technology. The Peugeot 908 coupe was dominating the round of the European-based Le Mans Series (LMS), but everyone knows that it is the 24 hours that matters to all concerned.

Generally when you look down into the packed parking lot of Qualcom field you see acres of lifted trucks with trailer hitch mounted bar-b-ques and beds full of ice cradling kegs of the finest cheap domestic beer money can buy if it's on sale. Armies of blue painted bare-chested men burrow between the trucks like NFL liveried ants in elementary school science project. Today however, the home of The San Diego Chargers is over run with European Car Fanatics all brought together by socaleuro.com.

I am a boxer guy. I'm not talking about my taste in engine configurations eventhough I do own a 911. I mean I am a cotton, wild print, elastic band boxer guy. I have no idea what organizer of car shows wear, but something tells me they must have some kind of super shorts, because if they were boxer guys like me they would be just as unhappy spending a day walking around a 100 degree black top parking lot as I am. This years Dubfest was a good show. Good turn-out of lots of nice European imports, good vendor support and even auto-crossing. The downside however, is that it was held at Irwindale Speedway Way, roughly 40 miles inland from the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

The Southern California MINI Maniacs gathered for a car show, fund raiser and general MINI(and Mini) related good times. There is nothing better than a couple hundred classic and current MINIs showing up in one spot.

From San Diego to Stockholm and eight other stops along the way, the Red Bull Air Race World Series, sponsored in part by Audi, is an extreme aviation spectacle like no other. Pilots pull up to 10g with unprecedented skill and precision in their high-performance Zivko Edge 540 race planes.

*The 2008 Dakar Rally would have been an adventure worthy of a John Williams score, something I could have told my grandchildren about. Unfortunately, it was cancelled due to terrorist threats and unrest in Mauritania. The race has been threatened more times than I care to count in its 30-year history. In the past, the organizers have either re-routed or skipped stages entirely because of safety concerns. This year, however, the dangers were deemed too great and the French sanctioning body decided that, in the interest of safety, the whole event would be called off.

The American Le Mans Series rolled in to the Monterey Peninsula to conclude what has been the most politically contentious yet most competitive season in the series' history. The lighter, more nimble LMP2 Porsche RS Spyders have had the measure of the Audi R10 TDIs on most of the shorter American circuits. This should not come as any surprise, as the LMP1-category Audi was built for Le Mans and not a street course like Long Beach. It made for some incredible close racing between the Penske Porsche Panzers and the Audi diesel brigade. Laguna Seca should have been a Porsche parade, but the will of Allan McNish and Dindo Capello aboard their Audi R10 TDI changed all that. From his fifth spot on the grid, McNish reeled in the Porsches after half a dozen laps and Capello completed the magical mystery tour at the four-hour mark by a margin of 0.410 seconds over the #7 Porsche. Usually, end-of-season affairs are anti-climatic; not so with Laguna Seca's race-into-darkness approach. The sight of the lead cars, lights ablaze, working through traffic on this twisty California circuit was intense, over the top and emotional.

Montreal, Canada to Savannah, Georgia

*I find myself in Montreal a day early. My 'official schedule' said the Bullrun started on May 11, hence my booking a flight for the 10th. But now I'm here inside the Ritz-Carlton's lobby, I find it doesn't start until Saturday the 12th. I've got an entire 24 hours to kill.

Event: Roller Derby
A day at the dyno

Bill Ford coined the phrase: "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday." The only problem is that manufacturer-led motorsport has gone so far beyond the cars we drive on the street that it has become nothing more than a brand-building exercise. Anyone who genuinely believes their 3 Series feels the benefits of the F1 program probably still watches the chimney at Christmas for those tell-tale black boots and red trousers.

The Frankfurt auto show is the quintessential automotive spectacle--and IAA 2007 was no different. You could easily spend the entire week here taking it all in, but here are some of the notable European exhibits which caught our eye.

*In celebration of Ferrari's 60-year anniversary, Ferrari and a legion of owners from around the world took part in the Ferrari 60 Relay, spanning the globe and covering five continents. The relay, which kicked off earlier in the year in Abu Dhabi (site of the future Ferrari theme park) concluded in Maranello after traversing 43 countries in 148 days.

FALLOUT 2007 will be held Saturday October 13th at GMP in Charlotte, NC. The event is free to attend and will run from 10am to 3pm. The event features manufacturer's seminars, VW/Audi/Porsche chip tuning, a people's choice car show and a 2WD Dyno. After the show, there will be a cruise down to Waldhorn, an authentic German restaurant located in Pineville.

The SEMA Show exceeded 100,000 attendees in 2003, the first time in its 37-year history. As usual, european car spent a week combing the 9,000 exhibits for good stuff we hadn't seen before. Obviously, we missed a few things. Of those we found, some were from the usual suspects and a few were from tiny new upstarts we hadn't heard of. We thought the items here were especially interesting.

Glancing at the speedo heading into Eau Rouge, literally translated as "red water," at Spa-Francorchamps was a sobering experience, especially when I saw 10 mph too many on the clock when it was too late to do anything about it. The fronts gave up the battle for grip going into the dip before the road climbed around to the right, and I missed the apex of the second part of the complex. In a much stiffer machine, this would be the precursor to plane-crash-style wreckage. This was the place where F1's resident psychopath, Jacques Villeneuve, had his "best crash ever," and one driver at our event, reportedly in the last Ferrari F40 to roll off the Maranello line, also tasted the Armco. To rub salt into his wound, he had to pay $400 for the barrier damage....

After all the fun we've had throwing Volkswagens and Audis in the ring together, a Porsche comparison was bound to happen. The 996 Twin Turbo is much like other turbocharged, Motronic-managed cars in that it is fairly easy to get basic power increases with software only. But with a 3.6-liter engine built for boost, all-wheel drive and a sports car body, it is the biggest hammer in Europe's go-fast shop. When half the entries of this shootout came to european car self-organized and ready to rumble, the 996 Twin Turbo shootout happened sooner. We're told it all started when someone logged onto a forum at www.6speedonline.com and said his car was faster than someone else's. Fightin' words, those are.

The Audi S4 is, to many, the ultimate expression of a refined European sport sedan. It has all-wheel-drive traction and combines the benefits of turbocharging with displacement. The S4 is also luxurious, with stellar execution of world-leading interior and exterior design. It is a beautiful car, capturing much of what european car strives to be about. Shaking down a bunch of S4s on a dyno, dragstrip and road course was a natural follow-on to our 1.8T Challenge.

The 2002 Tuner Grand Prix at Hockenheim was plagued with rain for the first time in the event's 10-year history, but this year the weather returned to its normal form for early June and gave us two blazing hot days for practice and the Grand Prix.

This year saw the 77th Internationale Auto-Salon, or what we would call the 2007 Geneva car show. And for fans of European cars, it's one of the high points of the year. This time around stayed true to form, with lots of cool metal (and, increasingly, carbon fiber) to check out. Here's our whirlwind tour...

Gemballa Mirage GT

My postcard to the editor--which I never actually got to mail--reads: