Tag Archives: Racing

Sailing: The 37th America’s Cup – Barcelona 2024

Emirates Team New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron are pleased to announce Barcelona, in the region of Catalonia as the Host Venue for the 37th America’s Cup to be held in September and October of 2024. A mixture of history and modernity, Barcelona is one of the most iconic and attractive cities in the world and will become the first venue in the world to host both an Olympic Games and an America’s Cup event.

Racing Design: ‘Airspeeder’ Flying Electric Car (Video)

“It’s not a concept anymore, it’s not abstract anymore – it’s real.” Meet flying racing car Head Designer Felix Pierron, tasked with creating future flying machines.

Airspeeder is the world’s first racing series for electric flying cars. Our mission will accelerate eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) advanced aviation technology through intense sporting competition. This mobility revolution, underpinned by future tech will transform urban air mobility (UAM), global logistics and even medical applications with a clean-air electric vehicle (EV) solution.

Our racing multicopters are developed at our advanced aerospace engineering hub in Adelaide, South Australia by engineers drawn from elite motorsports, automotive, aviation and even FPV drone, electric plane, electric vehicles and passenger drone backgrounds. Airspeeder’s vision will deliver the most exciting and future focused motorsport on the planet. Following an inaugural unmanned season, elite pilots will take to the skies to race prop-to-prop while navigating electronically governed racetracks in the skies above some of the most visually arresting scenery in the world.

These manned multirotor electric vehicles will define a new era in advanced air mobility (AAM). Airspeeder’s first unmanned air race is scheduled for 2021 and will feature a full grid of multirotor unmanned Airspeeder Mk3 racing craft. The best pilots from drone racing will utilise latest RPAS (remotely piloted aircraft systems) in aerial battles across the globe. Our innovations will hasten the arrival of new advanced air mobility (AAM) technologies. Close but safe air racing is assured through latest LiDAR and radar technologies that create virtual forcefields around the sport’s cutting edge quadcopter format flying cars.

Rapid hair-pin turning manoeuvrability is delivered using a multicopter layout. This pioneering approach to aircraft design also enhances stability while electronic speed control (ESC) systems empower pilots to exploit the full potential of our advanced electric powertrains.

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Sailboat Racing: ‘Onboard AC75 Action’ From Prada ACWS Series, New Zealand

Some of the best bits of AC75 onboard action from the PRADA ACWS Auckland, December 2020.

The 36th America’s Cup presented by Prada will be contested by the winner of the 2017 America’s Cup, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron represented by their team, Emirates Team New Zealand, and the winner of the Prada Cup, the challenger selection series which takes place in January–February in 2021.

Sailboat Racing: ’36th America’s Cup’ Analysis

If there’s one hard fact in a sea of uncertainty, this is the team that needs to be beaten to win the America’s Cup, the current Defender representatives, Emirates Team New Zealand. Their new second boat took many by surprise as it was rolled out into the open for the first time. This is a bold, aggressively styled AC75 that is a long way from their first boat. Such a big departure has raised plenty of questions so, in our Defender analysis Matt Sheahan explains what this means for both the Kiwis and the competition.

Sailing: ‘Volvo Ocean Race 2022’ – Inside Look At 11th Hour Racing Team (Video)

After the start of The Ocean Race was delayed until 2021, due to Covid-19, the 11th Hour Racing Team decided to relocate their new IMOCA 60 sailing vessel from France back to the team’s home base in Newport, RI. Outside TV rides along on their transatlantic voyage.

The Ocean Race, the world’s toughest, fully-crewed around the world sailing race, has enthralled and inspired a global audience since 1973.

At the same time it has provided new perspectives on the ocean that covers more than 70% of our blue planet, bringing some of the most remote corners of the Earth up close and personal for viewers around the world.

Recent years have seen a growing awareness of the challenges facing the ocean and an increasing appreciation of the fundamental role it plays in maintaining the health of the planet.

Travel & Driving Videos: “Black Forest & Alpine Roads” Of Germany

It is a special, almost festive feeling to travel with CURVES through Southern Germany. And there’s a good reason: The CURVES crew comes from here. Southern Germany is our home turf.

We grew up with the tang of the forests and meadows, with the feeling of sweet lake water in our hair, with slightly uneven legs due to the undulating mountainscape – and our way of thinking, which has its roots in the many generations before us: We are Bavarians, we are Swabians, we are people of the Black Forest. And we have been looking forward to this CURVES edition for a very long time. There was just no way around it.

Perhaps we should have brought our readers on this trip much earlier – it’s beautiful here. But it’s just not done. It would have been impolite, pushy and, we first had to get to know each other, anyway. Hence, it took long detours around half the world until we finally arrived in the Black Forest, in Swabia and Bavaria. Of course, that’s only half the story.

Video Tributes: British Race Driving Legend Sir Stirling Moss (1929-2020)

Sir Stirlin MossPaying tribute to a racing icon and sporting legend. Rest in peace, Sir Stirling Moss. We’ll miss you.

Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss, OBE was a British Formula One racing driver. An inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, he won 212 of the 529 races he entered across several categories of competition and has been described as “the greatest driver never to win the World Championship”.

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Auto Racing Nostalgia: “Targa Florio” Endurance Race In Sicily (1906 – 1977)

1951 Targa Florio PosterThe Targa Florio was an open road endurance automobile race held in the mountains of Sicily near the island’s capital of Palermo. Founded in 1906, it was the oldest sports car racing event, part of the World Sportscar Championship between 1955 and 1973. While the first races consisted of a whole tour of the island, the track length in the race’s last decades was limited to the 72 kilometres (45 mi) of the Circuito Piccolo delle Madonie, which was lapped 11 times.

After 1973, it was a national sports car event until it was discontinued in 1977 due to safety concerns. It has since been run as a rallying event, and is part of the Italian Rally Championship.

1967 Targa Florio PosterThe race was created in 1906 by the wealthy pioneer race driver and automobile enthusiast, Vincenzo Florio, who had started the Coppa Florio race in BresciaLombardy in 1900. The Targa also claimed to be a worldly event not to be missed. Renowned artists, such as Alexandre Charpentier and Leonardo Bistolfi, were commissioned to design medals. A magazine was initiated, Rapiditas, which aimed to enhance, with graphic and photographic reproductions of the race, the myth of the car and the typical character of modern life, speed.[1]

1973 Targa Florio PosterOne of the toughest competitions in Europe, the first Targa Florio covered 3 laps equalling 277 miles (446 km) through multiple hairpin curves on treacherous mountain roads, at heights where severe changes in climate frequently occurred. Alessandro Cagno won the inaugural 1906 race in nine hours, averaging 30 miles per hour (50 km/h).

By the mid-1920s, the Targa Florio had become one of Europe’s most important races, as neither the 24 Hours of Le Mans nor the Mille Miglia had been established yet. Grand Prix races were still isolated events, not a series like today’s F1.

After winning the race several times, Porsche named the hardtop convertible version of the 911 after the Targa. The name targa means plaque or plate, see targa top.

From Wikipedia

Travel & Sports: “Madman Trails Of Bhutan” – Short Film By Scott Secco (2020)

Director/Cinematographer/Editor: Scott Secco

The kingdom of Bhutan — wedged like a hanging Garden of Babylon in the mighty eastern Himalayas — is the new frontier in the world of Enduro mountain biking. The arrival of the sport has been late but timely, as it enables riders to traverse the numerous ancient trails that make up an intricate web of pathways and dirt paths that dot and connect the kingdom’s diverse twenty districts, providing a backdrop for a ride in what is easily one of the world’s most pristine landscapes.

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Motor Racing: “The Art Of Competition – Racing Posters” (RM Sotheby’s)

RM Sotheby's LogoIn motor racing, a win or podium finish is often immortalized with the reward of a trophy but to foster and create the enthusiasm leading up to the race and attract the masses of racing enthusiasts and fans to witness many of the world’s greatest historic motoring races, it was often the beautifully executed imagery that drove people to the tracks. 

Often a work of art in itself, historic motor racing posters manage to capture the very spirit of each race, venue, marques and their respective drivers best. What better way to celebrate heritage of motor racing then through this outstanding offering of nearly 60 original posters and artwork, all offered without reserve.

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