Next year's 24 Hours of Le Mans pushed back a week

Race fans that look forward to the motorsports mecca that is the 24 Hours of Le Mans will have to wait one additional week.

According to an Autosport report, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest had announced the dates for the 2013 race as June 15-16, but following a request by the FIA, the dates had been changed. The race will now take place the 22nd and 23rd of June. The test date for the race will now be on June 9th.

In a statement from the ACO, the change was made, "in order to harmonize the world calendar of motor racing events."

The schedule change will not alter the fact that the 24 Hours of Le Mans remains as the centerpiece of the FIA World Endurance Championship season. The current season includes 12 Hours of Sebring, and six hour races at Spa, Silverstone, Sao Paulo, Bahrain, Fuji, and Shangai.

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Watch the World's Greatest Drag Race 2 with just engine sounds

The good people at Motor Trend were kind enough to whip up a behind-the-scenes video of the publication's recent epic drag race for our viewing enjoyment. As it turns out, there's more to pitting the world's quickest production cars against one another than finding an empty air strip and going to town. Last year, the magazine broke a total of 11 windshields thanks to a surprising number of stones on the course. To keep that from happening again, crews applied a thin sheet of vinyl to each windscreen to protect the glass from vicious chips.

But that's not what makes the clip below the jump so incredibly interesting. As you may recall, the first video featured plenty of dramatic music and only a few faint whispers of engine noise. Now MT has fixed that issue by serving up the full race with nothing but the raucous bark of exhaust notes to usher the cars toward the finish. Hit the jump to check it out for yourself.

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Health Canada clamps down on Targa Newfoundland over collectable Marlboro suit

We're sure you remember Zahir Rana, the gentleman who piloted a Ferrari Enzo into the Atlantic Ocean during last year's Targa Newfoundland. When the gentleman took his co-pilot and his car for a swim, he happened to be wearing a racing suit once worn by Rubens Barrichello. Back when the Formula One racer drove for Ferrari, the team was sponsored by Marlboro, which meant the cigarette company's logo was plastered all over the the suit. As it turns out, Health Canada takes a dim view of tobacco advertising during any racing event, and despite the fact that Rana had bought the signed suit at a charity auction as a piece of racing history, the government agency took offense to photos from the race depicting Rana in full Marlboro regalia.

According to Wheels.ca, Targa President Bob Giannou found himself on the raw end of phone calls and letters from Health Canada, informing him of "prohibitions regarding the promotion of tobacco products," even if the reference is historical.

Does that mean Canadian officials are going to block the public appearance of the hordes of vintage race cars sponsored by the likes of Rothmans, Marlboro, John Player Special, Camel, Lucky Strike, Kool and Skoal just to name a few? Like it or not, tobacco and racing have a long and storied history together, and attempting to censor that history from the public eye is downright foolish. Good luck, Health Canada.

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Watch Red Bull take a tour of New Jersey in an F1 car

Formula One may not be descending on New Jersey next year for the Grand Prix of America, but the news hasn't stopped Red Bull from doing a little early scouting. David Coulthard dusted off the RB7 racer for a few quick sprints through the streets of New Jersey and West New York on the proposed course. As if watching the F1 bruiser dart down the waterfront and through car-lined city streets isn't enough to get us seriously stoked about the race, Red Bull also turned its team loose on the Lincoln tunnel.

Listening to the high-strung racer clear its lungs in the tunnel is nothing short of fantastic. You'll want to turn up the volume for this one. Red Bull said the stunt drew onlookers out of their homes just to see and hear the RB7 scream by their doorsteps. We can certainly understand why.

As you may recall, F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone has said that the event is definitely not going to happen in 2013 and may get pushed back to 2014.

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Translogic follows Monster Tajima's historic, and short, Pikes Peak run

The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is the second-oldest motorsports event in the United States, having been contested since 1916. It's an outlier in the sanitized, corporate-sponsored world of professional racing, remaining true to its unique and local roots. The race has a long history of encouraging ingenuity and experimentation, so its not surprising that proponents of alternative fuels have long mixed it up amidst the more conventionally deployed big blocks and turbos.

But this year something special happened when course record holder and defending champion Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima showed up with an EV. Now Tajima was certainly not the first to attempt a run up the mountain under electric power, but his embrace of the technology after years of racing machines powered by internal combustion engines has to be regarded as significant. The EV movement couldn't have asked for a better public relations opportunity, which is why our sister site Translogic was there with cameras to document the occasion.

Unfortunately, Tajima's day was prematurely ended when his car caught fire. His course record was broken as well, but the former champ has promised to be back next year to give it another go with his Monster Sport E-Runner Pikes Peak Special.

Scroll down to watch the full episode of Translogic.

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Confederate heads to Bonneville with prototype X132 Hellcat Combat

In 2010, James Hoegh rode his Confederate P120 Fighter motorcycle across the Bonneville Salt Flats and reached 159 miles per hour. A little later he went back and got that up to 162.6 mph. This year he's going back to the BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials in Bonneville to try and hit 170 mph, which would break the record of 168.912 mph in the APF3000 class, set last year by Wink Ellis.

Heogh is sticking with Confederate for the attempt, but he's switched over to the X132 Hellcat Combat, a specially developed prototype version of the X132 Hellcat. The one-of-a-kind bike maintains the 132-cubic-inch S&S XWedge engine of the standard Hellcat and fits upgraded kit like a custom dual-track intake, CNC-ported heads with shorter cylinders, new rocker arms, a radiused crankshaft and a different compression ratio.

It won't be one-of-a-kind for long though, with Confederate set to produce "a limited number" of Hellcat Combats early next year. The trials were held this past weekend and results weren't available at the time of writing, but if Hoegh manages to break the record with his, we imagine the production run will sell out even faster than limited-edition Confederates usually do. Scroll down below for the press release.

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Watch Greg Tracy snap the 10-minute Pikes Peak barrier

There are the racers who tackle the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb on four wheels and then there are the (even more) insane bastards who head up the mountain on bikes. Greg Tracy is without a doubt one of the most talented of those souls. He's collected the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb overall win a total of six times, and this year, he blew straight past the 10 minute barrier on his Ducati with a 9:58.262 time up the course. Impressive, given the rider laid down a machine the weekend before the hill climb during a video shoot.

The time put him within six seconds of this year's winner, Carlin Dunne. Six seconds is a lifetime in motorsports, but watching Tracy wring the big Duc out over the 12-mile slog to the top makes it hard to fathom pulling any more time from the run. Check out the clip below for yourself.

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