Luken Communication welcomes the latest Rev’n affiliate,  KYNM – Albuquerque-Santa Fe, NM (DMA 47). KYNM, owned and operated by Belmax Broadcasting, LLC, officially launched Rev’n on Wednesday, July 22, 2015. Albuquerque and Santa Fe area viewers can now find Rev’n over-the-air on channel 21.4.
 
Vickie Archiveque, President of Belmax Broadcasting, said, “There’s nothing else on television like Rev’n. We couldn’t be more proud to bring the only automotive enthusiast-focused network to the Albuquerque-Santa Fe market. We believe Rev’n will perfectly complement our other offerings from Luken Communications, TUFF TV and Retro TV.”
 
Tim Krass, Luken’s Vice President of Affiliate Sales - West, said, “When we began offering this new property, I immediately thought of KYNM in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, knowing the station would be the perfect partner for this unmatched programming lineup.”
 
Rev’n officially launched on December 1, 2014, and currently reaches an estimated 52.7 million homes in 33 markets. Rev'n, a network geared towards the performance enthusiast, is dedicated to all things revving including cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats, ATVs, snowmobiles, events, auctions and more. With proven automotive content such as Two Guys Garage, Bidding Wars, Truck U and My Classic Car, Rev'n is a hit with fans and advertisers alike.

Ashcroft presents "Pressure Switch Fundamentals," its new webinar, on Thursday, August 27, 2015, from 2–3 p.m.

Discover a fresh look into the basics of pressure switch applications in this webinar. Participants will get to explore topics such as how a pressure switch works, terms and definitions, applications, and more.
 
Register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5068228903181390594

This weekend’s originally scheduled National Championship Racing Association modified events scheduled for Friday night at Outlaw Motor Speedway in Oktaha, Oklahoma, and Saturday night atop the Salina High Banks Speedway in Salina, Oklahoma, have been cancelled.

The Salina High Banks event has been rescheduled for Saturday night, September 12.

The next event for the NCRA modified division will be on Labor Day weekend, kicking off on Saturday, September 5, at 81 Speedway in Park City before heading north for their annual Labor Day weekend appearance atop the Belleville Highbanks in Belleville, Kansas, for a Sunday night event.

NASCAR’s 46-year-old executive vice president and chief racing development officer Steve O'Donnell has recently become the organization’s public voice when things get sideways or there’s a strong message to be delivered.

Within seven days in February, he addressed confusion surrounding Daytona 500 qualifying, explained the reasoning behind Kurt Busch’s indefinite suspension and dealt with Kyle Busch’s crash in Daytona Beach. Several weeks later, he explained why both Busch brothers would remain Chase-eligible despite missing several races. In June, he tackled driver safety at Dover, spoke about likely rules changes and did a conference call to explain those changes for the July race in Kentucky. Then, in July, he outlined new aero rules for Indianapolis, Michigan, Darlington and Richmond, and took time to remind a radio audience that the July race in Daytona Beach would remain at night.

Suddenly, fans used to seeing NASCAR’s chairman and CEO Brian France or vice chairman Mike Helton behind the mics were introduced to a relatively new face. O’Donnell has been with the company since 1996 but only recently has taken a more public role in its day-to-day operations. He’s polished, well spoken, well prepared, forward-looking and experienced—reasons enough why many who follow the sport expect he’ll soon be second only to France within the NASCAR hierarchy.

O’Donnell was born in New Jersey and spent his youth in Massachusetts and Egypt, where his father was a principal. After his 1991 graduation from Rollins (Fla.) College, he worked with a communications company before stints with the Daytona Beach Cubs and the Florida Citrus Bowl. When he joined NASCAR’s marketing department, it didn’t take long for Helton to notice what O’Donnell brings to the table.

“I’ve had the pleasure to watch Steve learn and grow into a leader in our sport,” said Helton. “He has taken on the leadership role regarding our efforts at the R&D Center and has been very instrumental in the communication with the tracks, drivers, teams and other key stakeholders as we work together to make our sport better.”

Colleague Doug Fritz also envisions great things for the young up-and-comer.

“Steve’s a great guy, and you could tell he had a lot to offer, a lot to bring to the table from a personality standpoint and as an employee,” said Fritz, who worked for NASCAR in Daytona Beach, Richmond and Iowa before going into the private sector. “He latched onto different aspects of the industry right away. I could absolutely see he was going to move up through the ranks. It wasn’t just marketing and it wasn’t just operations. He learned it all and did well at every stage. He’s energetic and well liked and capable, and everyone could see that from the start.”

O’Donnell’s NASCAR journey has included stops in sales and marketing, track operations, race-weekend procedures, the extensive weekly track series, safety, PR and media relations, scheduling, technical rules packages and discipline. He shuttles between NASCAR’s facilities in Daytona Beach and its R&D Center in Concord, NC, where he oversees all aspects of racing development.

“I focus the majority of my time on competition, working with teams and owners and drivers,” he said. “I’m making sure we’re aligned from a NASCAR standpoint with where we want to go. I’ll spend a lot of time on upcoming events and scheduling. There are two hats to the job.”

His greatest asset seems to be his relationship with the people who put on the shows. “He listens to us and understands the importance of our teams and the value in keeping good cars on the track,” said Richard Childress, an 11-time championship owner. “He listens to the whole garage, from first (in points) to 43rd. No matter who it is, Steve will listen.”

Legendary driver-turned-owner Richard Petty calls O’Donnell “a dad-burned good listener” who “gets out amongst the troops” to learn what’s what. “His mind might be made up,” the seven-time champion said, “but you get from his conversation and his questions that there’s still a ‘maybe’ in there, that he’s open for change. He’s good about talking to different people to get the drift of things. Now, he may take all that input with a grain of salt, but he’s still listening. Folks have a lot of confidence in him.”

Dennis Bickmeier, president of Richmond International Raceway, added that O’Donnell has “a lot of energy and enthusiasm for the future” and “is a student of the sport with a high level of engagement.”

Dover International Speedway executive Denis McGlynn quipped that if O’Donnell can spend almost 20 years in NASCAR “and still be the even-tempered, level-headed, well-prepared, good-guy professional that he is, that means he has all the earmarks for leadership.”

Just as important, drivers seem comfortable with him. “Steve was a great addition to the NASCAR team,” said driver Greg Biffle. “He opened an honest line of communication with drivers, and he listens to our feedback. Our sponsors and fans follow him diligently (on social media) and look to him as an insider with valuable interaction and up-to-date, honest information. Having that voice that fans can access is important to our sport.”

“He’s calm and easygoing,” said driver Carl Edwards, “but you know he’s in charge. You’ll be all worked up over something, and after a few seconds with Steve it’s like, ‘Oh, well, everything will be fine.’ He listens to people and takes their concerns to heart and has a good sense of humor. I think all of us (in the Cup series) are comfortable with him.”

Unlike NASCAR’s other upper-level executives, O’Donnell embraces social media. O’Donnell didn’t fully grasp its impact early on but now accepts social media as an invaluable marketing and PR tool. As @odsteve, he’s on Twitter almost daily and is a frequent contributor to NASCAR’s satellite radio shows. After the Pocono race in June, he appeared on a Fox-TV call-in telecast.

“I saw fans embracing it, so I got into it, too,” O’Donnell said of social media. “I didn’t know much about it, so I talked to people in the (mainstream) media about how they use it. I’ve had great one-on-one dialogues with fans. It’s not always positive, but I get feedback about where we might be going and where we need to go. It’s a great instrument for keeping up on what’s going on. The only problem is, I just can’t keep up and follow all that I’d like to. It gives me a great snapshot of what people are thinking.”

Motovicity Distribution, an automotive performance aftermarket distributor, is announcing the addition of Corbeau to their line card.

For over 50 years, Corbeau has been manufacturing automotive seats. As the only company to make sliding seat brackets in-house for nearly every vehicle on the road today, Corbeau has established a reputation for having one of the largest product lines in the automotive seat industry, as well as having comfortable seats.

“We are excited to offer our products through a respected distributor like Motovicity,” said Nate Smith of Corbeau.

Motovicity’s Sales Manager, Ryan Balicki, added, “Corbeau is a great fit for our customers. This brand nicely compliments our offering of high quality seating options at a tremendous value. We have now become a main destination for seats, stocking six major seat brands. With our experience, inventory, and industry leading shipping rates, this makes the news of our new partnership truly exciting.”

Corbeau is now available for wholesale purchase through Motovicity Distribution. For product inquiries, call 888.SPEED.16 to speak to a representative.

The British Touring Car Championship has announced an unchanged calendar for the 2016 season.

The series will keep its 10 rounds in the same order for a fifth straight year, opening and closing at Brands Hatch.

There are slight adjustments to the dates, with the Croft round moving forward from the end to the middle of June and allowing the second half of the year to run a week ahead of the recent pattern.

That means the season will conclude at the start of October rather than the middle of the month.

A six-week summer break is retained between the Croft event and Snetterton at the end of July.

2016 BTCC CALENDAR

April 2-3: Brands Hatch (Indy)

April 16-17: Donington Park

May 7-8: Thruxton

June 4-5: Oulton Park (Island)

June 18-19: Croft

July 30-31: Snetterton

August 13-14: Knockhill

August 27-28: Rockingham

September 17-18: Silverstone

October 1-2: Brands Hatch (Grand Prix)

Sherwin-Williams, an industry leader in paint and coatings, will serve as the Official Paint and Finishing Partner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, INDYCAR, the Verizon IndyCar Series, Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Crown Royal 400 at the Brickyard as part of a multi-year partnership agreement.

“Sherwin-Williams is extremely excited for this new relationship with INDYCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” said Bobby Moody, Director of Motorsports, Sherwin-Williams. “We’re looking forward to everything this new partnership entails, including celebrating the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 next May.”

The company will have branding integrated into IMS during its spotlight events in the Month of May, including the Indianapolis 500 and the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis; as well as inclusion from a paint and finishing perspective in Project 100, the collaboration between the Indiana state government and the Indiana Motorsports Commission creating a $100 million bond issue to raise money for improvements to IMS.

Full-time teams in the Verizon IndyCar Series have the opportunity to use paint and finishing products under terms of the agreement. Sherwin-Williams will also offer unique customer experiences to enhance business-to-business programs.

“We’re extremely proud to announce this partnership with Sherwin-Williams and confident it will be a tremendous asset for both the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and INDYCAR,” said Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman & Company, the parent of INDYCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “Sherwin-Williams’ support of both brands, in addition to many of our events at IMS, is obviously valuable – but we’re also very excited for the opportunity to integrate their paint and finishing products into the facility itself, including many projects we have planned for Project 100. We look forward to a very successful partnership and are thankful to Sherwin-Williams for the support.”

Spectators, TV viewers and Verizon IndyCar Series teams will be able to better distinguish which cars are running Firestone Racing’s new rain tire by its silver stripe, which complements the red stripe on the alternate tires for road and street courses.

The rain tires will be available this weekend at the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.

Beyond the packaging, the year-long development process utilized state-of-the-art technologies to meet the goals of safety, reliability and raceability on a variety of wet surfaces. The tread pattern and tread depth are the same as the previous rain tires introduced in July 2014.

“There are a lot of things we’re doing behind the scenes to make sure we’re putting the best possible product on the racetrack. For the first time, we used a lot of our company’s internal tools to look at the compound on a small scale,” said Dale Harrigle, chief engineer for Bridgestone America’s Motorsports and manager of race tire development.

Experimental compounds were run through a wet friction test to evaluate which had the most wet traction. Then a handful of tires were built and taken to Bridgestone’s proving grounds in Texas for wet traction testing in addition to “other machines in-house that we can run full-size tires on to evaluate wet traction,” Harrigle said.

“We took all of those tests and boiled it down to which compound performed the best and that’s the compound we picked for this rain tire,” he added.

Verizon IndyCar Series teams provided data of typical loads and speeds on wet road/street courses, which was instrumental in developing the tire construction.

“We optimized the tire to better fit wet conditions. We did that virtually through 48 different simulation cases on the front and rear tires and came up with the construction we wanted to use,” Harrigle said.

“The key features of this new rain tire is it’s a new tread compound optimized for wet grip. A silver stripe was added to the sidewall so it’s easier for the fans and teams to identify who is on rains, who is on primaries and who is on alternates.”

Harrigle said he expects rain tire wear to be about the same as the previous rain tires, which had a softer compound.

“A lot of it is surface-dependent,” he said. “It will be a learning process for teams and drivers. The biggest challenge for us is the concrete, which is smooth.”

The forecast for the race weekend is sun with temperatures in the mid-80s.

Holley Performance announces the sponsorship of an all new performance event coming to beautiful Bowling Green, Kentucky. The 2015 Camaro Fest will take place at historic Beech Bend Raceway August 6–8, 2015. Holley is sponsoring the event through their new Hooker Blackheart brand of premium stainless exhaust products.

Camaro Fest is similar to the Holley LS Fest event coming up September 11–13, 2015, but is focused primarily around Chevrolet's early and late model Camaro muscle car. Camaro Fest has previously been open to only Chevrolet Camaros, of which over 750 are expected to attend. For 2015, event promoters are proud to announce they are opening up the event to both Corvettes and Cadillacs.

Thursday, August 6, the NCM track will host a track day for participants that will take place on the tracks Grand Full configuration. The Grand Full course is a 3.15 mile setup that featuring technical turns, elevation changes, and chicanes, as well as impressive speeds.

Friday and Saturday will take place at Beech Bend Raceway and feature an autocross hosted by Music City Camaro Club. To register for the autocross, visit www.camarocross.com.

Drag classes are also a large part of Camaro Fest. 5th Gen drag classes from stock V6 to Unlimited V8 are available for participation. Bracket racing will be available for any registered car including Corvettes and Cadillacs. Specialty classes and grudge matches will also be available for participation. Drag class finals will take place on Saturday afternoon. Non-GM cars are also welcome to compete in the drag strip or autocross but will not be eligible to win in any other event than in bracket racing.

For those interested in keeping their Camaro looking pristine, bring your ride out to participate in the Camaro Fest Show-N-Shine. This Saturday-only event is free with event admission, and features the following judged classes: Best 1st to 5th generation Camaro, Best Paint, Exterior, Interior, Engine Bay, Firebird, Best of Show and club participation.

Camaro fans also have the opportunity to take a plant tour of the Corvette Assembly Plant on Thursday and Friday of the event.

Admission to Camaro Fest at Beech Bend Raceway is $100 for a two day participant driver wristband, or $20 for a two day spectator wristband. The host hotel for the event is the Holiday Inn University Plaza  located at 1021 Wilkinson Trace, Bowling Green, KY.

For more information on Camaro Fest, visit the Camaro 5 forum or email your questions to camarofest@camarocross.com.

The NHRA is giving its Pro Stock division a high-speed makover.

The changes as announced are designed to increase spectator appeal, make the class more relevant from a technology standpoint, and to enhance the overall pit experience for fans of the 200-mph factory hot rod class.

The changes will be mandated in two waves. Three changes will take effect at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals, July 31, while several others will not take effect until the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season.

The three changes that are effective at Sonoma are designed to increase spectator appeal and enhance the overall pit experience for fans.

Among the new rules to go into effect at Sonoma:

• The NHRA will require teams to back their cars into the pits and leave engines uncovered so that spectators have better accessibility to see the cars and interact with the drivers and crew members.

• A new rule also will discontinue the practice of crew members standing beside the cars to hold them in place as they begin their burnouts.

• NHRA will make it mandatory for teams to create automobile manufacturer identification headers visible on the cars’ windshields up to a maximum of 4.5 inches high, but not smaller than 4.25 inches.

And as for 2016 rule changes:

• The NHRA will require all Pro Stock teams to equip their cars with electronically controlled throttle body fuel injection systems, making engines more relevant from a technology standpoint. In order to reduce and control costs for the race teams, an NHRA-controlled 10,500 rev limiter will be added to the fuel injection systems.

• NHRA also will require Pro Stock teams to remove all hood scoops and reduce the length of the wheelie bars to a length specified by the NHRA Tech Department. Those changes are designed to make the racecar designs more relevant and to boost spectator appeal by increasing the unpredictability of the class through more “wheels up” launches from the starting line.

In addition to the changes, the NHRA will work with new television partner Fox Sports to improve coverage and maximize exposure of the Pro Stock category through increased driver and team profiles and technical features, in addition to expanded on-track racing coverage. 
        
“Pro Stock racing has a tremendous history with NHRA and proves each weekend by the close side-by-side finishes that it is one of the most competitive forms of racing in all of motorsports,” said Peter Clifford, NHRA president. “Through these changes we hope to provide a platform so the Pro Stock class can evolve from a technological standpoint, yet reconnect with its roots by generating more interest and appeal among spectators.”