It's officially called the EURO Auto Festival, but everybody knows at as the EURO. "EURO" as in European cars only; if it wears an American brand label, or comes from Japan, Israel or Sri Lanka, sorry, not welcome here. There was one partially inexplicable exception to that rule, as there were a couple of Chrysler Crossfires in this year's show, bending the rules a bit in deference of that's car's strong German content and connection to the days of DaimlerChrysler. In spite of its edgy bodywork, the Crossfire is essentially a first generation Mercedes-Benz SLK underneath. Another modest rulebender was the Hudson Italian prototype, built on a Hudson chassis with Hudson running gear, but with coachwork by Italy's Touring.

It may not have been the last bar on Earth; however, it was one of the noisiest. Who says that all Holiday Inns are the pits? While the digs in Zhuhai will never be confused with The Ritz-Carlton, the majority of the teams were content enough. A race in China is far from just another stop on the calendar. It is a major undertaking involving considerable logistics in getting man, machine and equipment all in one place at the right time. Long gone are the days when a car and a couple of mechanics made the long haul by air or sea to partake in an event. The images from 1954 of an Aston Martin or Ferrari being unloaded at the Autodromo in Buenos Aires for a 1,000km sports car race may show a simpler time, but the reality of the effort remains the same today. Competition and commerce.

If what happened in Vegas this past weekend of April 22nd to the 24th actually stayed in Vegas, then keeping it secret would be a shame. The annual gathering of BMW M fanatics for MFest, this year titled, "The Ultimatum," was bigger and badder than ever. Participants flew in from places as far as Brazil, the UK, Germany and France. On the caravan up, they broke their own record for consecutive BMWs with over 245 cars lined up. It was a veritable orgy of burnt rubber and cooked brakes as cars were flogged on Las Vegas Motor Speedway's drag strip and road course. And the show cars represented an ecclectic variety of tuning and modifications, with superchargers, turbos and engine swaps everywhere you turned.

The end of 2010 saw the conclusion of the fourth installation of the Targa Trophy Triple Crown road rally. The final event, dubbed Desert Challenge, transpired in and around fabulous Las Vegas, staging at the Aria Resort and running from the Vegas Strip through scenic Red Rock State Park, up into the mountains, then back down into downtown with a stopover at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

In drag racing circles, they say "the bullshit stops when you line them up." That's also true with aftermarket tuners. After all, when you contemplate spending a small fortune modifying your engine, suspension, wheels, tires, and brakes, you want to know that the finished car really will perform like it says on the box.

June 26, 2010-The Targa Trophy Triple Crown rally series finished its first event at the W Hotel in San Diego. This is ec's third year participating in the event, and this one is special because we've partnered with the Trophy as an official media sponsor.

August 28 and 29 saw the second installment of the Targa Trophy go flying out of the San Francisco Bay and into Silicon Valley. As we wrote in the October ’10 issue, european car has partnered with the event organizers as an official media outlet and will be offering expanded content at europeancarweb.com, including expanded photo galleries and the official Targa press alerts. The second event began at the San Fran W Hotel, with a midday lunch stop at the W in Silicon Valley, then continued over some damn tortuous roads en route back to the S.F. W.

Day Three found us up bright and early in an attempt to beat the traffic that would inevitably clog the Valley as the first of the three major concourse events got underway simultaneously: Concorso Italiano and The Quail. The day dawned cool and overcast, as usual, but by 10 a.m. the sun was out and temperatures were on the rise.

Yesterday evening we capped off Day 2 on our Los Angeles to Pebble Beach marathon with the guys from BMW North America. The day dawned overcast (as we sort of expected) but by the time we finished breakfast at local favorite Paula’s Pancake House a mere two hours or so later, the cloud cover had burned off and the sun was shining, promising another beautiful day of driving.

We were fortunate this week to hook up with our friends at BMW North America for an impromptu road rally up the coast to the famed Pebble Beach week of festivities, world famous for its no-holds-barred display of utter automotive opulence. I feel especially fortunate because I’ve never actually partaken in the event. Even better, BMW decided to make just getting to Pebble an event in itself, so as we drive up the coast we’ll be making some strategic stops to enhance the experience and truly make this a week to remember.

There seems an undying cultural fascination with playing a Mulligan for those teenage years that most of us figure we probably sliced into the rough. This rose-colored rear-view implies that period of our lives would have been a ball, if only we'd been a bit smarter.

TechArt underlined its 2008 win by snatching overall victory at this year's Sport Auto Tuner Grand Prix. And just to ram home the point, it swept the board in two other classes as well.

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.