What will be Chevy’s plight at Atlanta? As the team aims for victory, what measures will be taken?

Practice for the EasyCare Vehicle Service Contracts 200 started noon today. Qualifying is scheduled tomorrow at 9:45 a.m. after which NASCAR officials will impound the 36-truck starting field until the start of the 130-lap/200-mile race set for 1:00 p.m. SPEED TV, MRN Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio will bring the live action to the fans.

Ron Hornaday, Jr., No. 33 Camping World Silverado, and his Kevin Harvick, Inc. (KHI) team are continuing their disciplined strategy to the remaining four races of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (NCTS) season as Team Chevy Silverado heads for Atlanta Motor Speedway (AMS).

The NCTS champion and crew chief Rick Ren are entering the EasyCare Vehicles Service Contracts 200 this Saturday with the mindset that has kept them in a oscillate fight for this season’s championship all year long - lead laps, win races or secure the best finish possible.

How’s the team? Let’s hear it from the members…

Hornaday has this to say: "I am looking forward to going to Atlanta. I have one win there already, and I will be going for another one. We did a good job at Martinsville last weekend. We did what we needed to do and that was to have a good finish and we ended up finishing third. Rick Ren and all the guys are doing a great job, just giving me awesome trucks. These guys are tough.

Ren is taking a proven Silverado for Hornaday, knowing that keeping his driver comfy in the arena helps the team stay focused on the immediate task at hand. "We are ready for Atlanta," said Ren. "We are taking a truck that has been driven a lot this year, and it has been driven at different types of tracks. It has already been to Atlanta once this year. It has been to California, Kansas, Dover, Charlotte and Las Vegas, which are the same type of track as Atlanta."

At AMS, Matt Crafton, No. 88 Menards Silverado, finished third in the spring NCTS race. After qualifying second, his season high, at Martinsville, Crafton looked to be headed for a strong top-three finish until a multi-truck wreck in turn four on the last lap relegated him to the 18th finishing position. "That was just one of those racing deals…unfortunately, we just got out of position," said Crafton. "But all in all, it was a real good day, best qualifying effort of the year, and best run of the year, and we just have to forget about the last half-lap of that race.  I love Atlanta…it’s my favorite track.  We’ve had some success there, and we expect to run well there.”

Regan Smith will be behind the wheel of the No. 47 Ginn Resorts Silverado fielded by Morgan-Dollar Motorsports at AMS. "Every time I have crawled in that Silverado this season, we have been capable of a top-five finish, we just have had some bad racing luck. We are going to Atlanta looking for great things for this team. Every one at Morgan-Dollar deserves a good run and a good finish," said Smith.

The Atlanta race will ink Kyle Busch’s 8th start for Billy Ballew Motorsports this season. Aberrantly for the team, it has yet to visit victory lane in the No. 51 RedTop Auto Auction Silverado. Busch has a NCTS victory at AMS, coming in the fall race of the 2005 season. "I’m excited to be back in the truck for Billy Ballew this weekend in Atlanta," said Busch. "Our first run in Atlanta for him we won.  I would love to repeat the win for Georgia native Billy Ballew and the Georgia sponsor RedTop Auto Auction.  We haven’t had a win this year yet and I think we have a good possibility to do that here in Atlanta.”

Brendan Gaughan, No. 77 South Point Hotel Silverado, had a great performance in the spring 2007 AMS race. He is looking forward to relive it this Saturday. "We’re back to a track that I love," Gaughan said. "I was lucky to get out of Martinsville with an 11th-place finish, and I’m happy to be heading back to some tracks that suit my style of racing. We’re going back there expecting better things this time around."

Willie Allen, No. 13 ThorSport Racing Silverado, is currently sitting in the lead for the 2007 Raybestos Rookie of the Year title notwithstanding previous disaster. "I’m really excited about going back to Atlanta," said Allen.  "Anytime I get to go to a track that I have been to before is a definite plus for me and the team. It’s nice having a little extra experience and confidence. Atlanta is one of my favorite tracks on the circuit."

Shane Sieg, No. 15 Terry Reid Automotive Group Silverado, will field a second BBM entry. It will be his fourth NCTS start of the season and his third start for BBM. "Atlanta is an exciting track to race at," said Sieg.  "You can run the high or low grooves on the pack making it easier to pass.  Atlanta is a fast mile and a have race track and you need to make sure your truck is balanced. I hope to avoid the crashes and have a solid finish for both Billy (Ballew) and our sponsor."

[Via: TruckSeries.com Report]    

Are you an aficionado of those Chevy Cobalts? It seems that an air of positive vibe has been delighting your team. And you feel the bliss too.

As the 2007 KONI Challenge Series season winds down, the teams that run the Chevy Cobalt SS Supercharged in the ST class have only two chances left to rack up additional wins against some of the world’s most competitive brands, Who Won reported. Although Miller Motorsports Park near Toole, Utah is one of the more challenging tracks on the circuit with 24 corners distributed throughout 4.5 miles, Jamie Holtom and Eric Curran who share the No. 01 Georgian Bay Motorsports/SCADAPack Cobalt have had success at the desert road course, with Holtom putting the car on the pole position in the series’ first-ever qualifying session there, the report added.

"Even though we’ve had several rule changes since the series last raced at Miller, we’re expecting to have a successful outing based on our performance there a year ago," said Dwight Woodbridge, KONI Challenge Series program manager for GM Racing. "It’s a technical track and that favors our cars and detail-oriented teams. It will be hot, no doubt, but probably no worse than at Barber Motorsports Park where our cars seemed to perform quite nicely despite the heat."

"That was a pretty phenomenal lap I put down here last year," said Holtom. "I think I managed to qualify a second ahead of the field. Hopefully we’ll be able to repeat that. With the long straightaways, the competition adjustments that Grand-Am has made have helped quite a bit, so we feel we’re more in contention than we were. I think with the combination of good high-speed handling - which is what Miller is all about - and the straight-line speed that the Cobalt has been able to improve on, I think we can do well."

At Barber Motorsports Park, Holtom and Curran inked their first win this season. They also held the pole position. From the previous race, aficionados should be feeling confident about the upcoming event.

"With the combined field, you don’t want to be passed by the leader if you’re not the first car in the ST field," explained Holtom. "Unless you’re leading the ST field, getting passed by the race leader is bad because if a full-course caution happens, you can end up a lap down. Then you’ll have to use pit strategy to your advantage to try and get back on the lead lap."

Kurt Kossmann will again co-drive the No. 53 Predator Auto Sport Chevrolet Cobalt. Two other Cobalt SS Superchargeds will join the event, the No. 138 GS Motorsports car of Gunter Schmidt, Andrew Danyliw and Steve Kent and the No. 06 Project Motorsports Cobalt of Derek DeBoer, Tom Smurzynski and Mallory Smurzynski.

The combined class KONI Challenge Series race is set on Friday, 14th of this month at 3:00 in the afternoon MDT and will run 200 miles (45 laps) or to a time limit of 2.5 hours.

General Motors has laid down the red carpet at this year’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit and let their products accompanied by some famous celebrities, including Hollywood stars Christian Slater and Vivica Fox. But the star who has drawn the attention of the crowd was the new Chevrolet Camaro Convertible. The Camaro features an aggressive look and classic sleek orange body paint along with dark grey stripes. The Camaro convertible also gets tonneau cover over the folded top, halogen headlamps, LED taillamps, rear spoiler with LED-lit CHMSL, racing-inspired fuel filler door, front-inlet hood scoop, and heritage-inspired rear fender gills. The Camaro Convertible is equipped with a powerful V8 engine couple with a manual transmission as a standar powertrain feature. The car rides on a 21-inch front and 22-inch rear five-spoke charcoal wheels.The Camaro’s interior gets a platinum-tone leather at the front seats along with Alcantara inserts and black sculpted seatbacks.

GM has already confirmed the production of the Chevrolet Camaro Convertible by 2009 so you better watch out for it. You can also try to look for quality Chevrolet Parts for replacement at your trusted online aftermarket shops.

Around 100 engineering students from the country’s top universities, who don’t let their schooling interfere with their education, trooped to the General Motors proving grounds in the outskirts of Mesa, Arizona as participants to this year’s edition of the GM-sponsored Challenge X.

With the temperature at the tarmac sputtering to 115 and the competition supposedly not granting any academic credits to the participants, it was some thing to see the young men and women get their hands dirty for a trifling accolade as winner of the Challenge X.

Now on its third year, the Challenge X competition seeks to explore clean and efficient automotive technologies. This year’s edition was billed as “Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility,” and presented by GM in collaboration with the academe and the US Department of Energy.

Challenge X puts 17 US universities to test in reengineering the Chevrolet Equinox, a crossover sports utility vehicle, to minimize energy consumption, emissions, and greenhouse gases while maintaining or exceeding the vehicle’s utility and performance.

GM supplied the teams with the vehicle for modification, threw in $10,000 seed money for each team, donated production parts such as engines and transmissions, provided engineering consulting for each team, competition facilities, operational support and $20,000 in prize money.

But there’s one caveat: with the increased fuel economy of the Chevrolet equinox, it must maintain the performance, utility, creature comforts and safety attributes consumers want. And, the vehicle’s total package has to be feasibly produced at a price that buyers wouldn’t walk away from.

List of participants include the Michigan Technological University, Mississippi State University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, San Diego State University, Texas Tech University, University of Akron, University of California, Davis, University of Michigan, University of Tennessee, University of Texas at Austin, University of Tulsa, University of Waterloo, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Virginia Tech, West Virginia University.