Pit Notes

Willy T. Ribbs is back on the motorports scene after a 10-year break. The colorful and sometimes combative Ribbs, will join Barbara Terry Racing for the remainder of her 2011…

If Matt Farah is right, the American version of the storied Top Gear TV show soon will have some smart, funny competition on the Speed Channel. In an interview for…

Credentialing journalists for an Auto Show may be contentious in Detroit but it is confirmative in Chicago where Nissan has taken over a long standing sotto voce program to help selected journalists with travel and housing costs while covering the Chicago Auto Show. In addition, each exhibiting manufacturer will be given a unique URL to use in inviting up to 300 journalists per brand. Those invited will use that URL to register with the Show offices and print out their own badge. This will include social media communicators the manufacturers consider important to them. Inquiries about these programs should be directed to the Chicago Auto Show offices at http://www.chicagoautoshow.com/media/default.aspx

For those who missed it here is a link to a TV spot for car lovers submitted by one of our readers. Shown only in Europe, it ostensibly is selling for Shell Oil Company but it is the Ferraris used in it that make the spot sing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_kwxzU4wL4&feature=related

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The selection of the Chevrolet Volt as the North American Car of The Year revives a PR firm’s endeavor to help one of its clients sell cars it has in stock. Offered as blog fodder, it was sent after Rush Limbaugh and George Will criticized Motor Trend’s selection of the Volt as its car of the year and after the magazine’s Detroit Editor, Todd Lassa, posted a response to those two car “experts” at: http://blogs.motortrend.com/rush-judgment-5957.html

Here is the fodder offered by the PR firm:

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The auto racing community is being asked to reach out and help one of its many, many unheralded workers pay to restore the face and future of his granddaughter who…