Continental Tire kicked off the 2010 season opener: the Fresh From Florida 200 at Daytona two weekends ago as the new series sponsor for this years GRAND-AM series. They run a 3.5 mile, 12-turn speedway road course at the Daytona track. The Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge is an endurance road race series and made up of two classes of race cars: the big-bore Grand Sport (GS) class features a rules package that allows exotic international machines like the Porsche 996 and 997, Nissan 350Z, BMW M3 and others to go head-to-head with American iron such as the Camaro and Dodge Challenger. The smaller Street Tuner (ST) class is GRAND-AM’s offering to the import and compact car crowd, with the Mazda RX-8 and Mazda MX-5, Chevrolet Cobalt SS, Dodge SRT4, Mini Cooper S, Acura TSX, a variety of BMWs. All Continental Sports Car Challenge classes run on Continental ExtremeContact tires.

RSR Motorsports, with three ridiculously fast Mini Coopers running in the ST class, is certainly a favorite of the Pure Racing crew. The team is based out of Mesa, AZ and consists of (3) cars: 196, 197, and 198. RSR Motorsports are in their 4^th season of the Grand-Am racing series and are prime to kick some ass in 2010. Randy Smalley, team owner and driver of the 196 car has built quite the team around his Mini Coopers. When asked whey they’re such a crowd favorite and how they manage to perform so well, Smalley responded “We’re hands down the leaders in Mini Cooper racing technology”. Most people haven’t seen much Mini Cooper racing, if at all. To any casual observer, the Mini would seem an underdog to the field of heavier cars. Smalley states that it’s attributed to the lightweight car, braking, and handling, then added “No one can take a turn at the speed we can”.

We’re proudly featuring RSR to showcase how these Minis are holding it down against all the bigger stouter cars. Sure, Pure Racing helped with the racing graphics package for the fleet of Minis. But these Minis can flat-out tear up a road course! Last year RSR snagged pole at Virginia International Speedway and had the fastest lap at Miller in Utah. The team’s dedication, skilled crew, and accomplished drivers will likely place them on the podium very soon.

Speed Channel is broadcasting the race tonight, Feb 13th at 7:30pm. Be sure to tune in to see the absolute finest road racing by the hottest international and domestic stock high-performance sports cars, coupes, and sedans. These are the same sports cars you see on the streets and highways every day. The only major mods permitted are to improve safety. 

You can check out the full Continental Tire 2010 series schedule at the official Grand-Am website.

Today we spent a few minutes on youtube checking out extreme examples of downhill riding.  In the spirit of the Olympics starting this weekend with downhill, we decided to share with you some amazing downhill racing videos.  Enjoy!