The Opel Antara’s adaptability and functionality will be put to the test once again in January 2008. For the second year in a row, an Antara with Balázs Szalay and his ‘Szalay Dakar Team’ at the wheel will take on the Lisbon-Dakar rally – the longest and most difficult cross-country rally competition in the world.

With expert assistance from GM Racing and sponsorship from General Motors/Opel Hungary, the private team’s brand new car – an Opel Antara RR – has been specially adapted to the harsh conditions and includes the latest GM race engine. In its first desert test at the UAE Desert Challenge in November 2007, the new Antara RR performed sensationally, helping the team to 8th place overall.

Balazs Szalay has been rallying Opel cars since 2003, and 2008 will be his 10th Dakar race. And with the versatile, dynamic Opel Antara, Balazs has the best chances of a top-place finish. Boasting a robust design, distinctive lines and a powerful stance, the Opel crossover is sure to cut a fine figure as it battles through the sand dunes and challenging conditions toward Dakar. The team will be assisted throughout by Gregory Prior and Ross O’Blenes, two GM Motorsport engineers who participated in the engine development for the Dakar Antara and spent time in Hungary fine-tuning the car. “The GM Racing engineers will be a great help when it comes to the technical side of the rally, and give us the assistance we need to pose a greater challenge to the other professional drivers in the race,” says Balázs Szalay.

The 9723-kilometer Lisbon-Dakar rally begins in Lisbon/Portugal on January 5 and ends in Dakar/Senegal on January 20, 2008. To date, 580 vehicles have signed up for the 2008 rally, which promises to be the toughest in the event’s 30-year history.

For reasons that scarcely require elaboration, “lubricity” is one of my favorite words. It is, first of all, fun to say, all slippery with sibilance. Second, many fine things are lubricious in nature. Easy dinner conversation, for instance. The balanced slickness of a well-oiled pistol (caution: Avoid combining dinner conversation and pistols). In fact, lubricity might even be counted as one of the universal cues of quality. Whenever a thing has a heft and substance that nonetheless yields to effortless operation — a Waterman pen, for instance, or the stout zipper on Prada boots, or the gliding drawers of a Pegaso desk — that registers as a thing well made.

And that brings us to the 2008 Audi S5 Coupe . The S5 — the performance variant of the A5 Coupe , with an extra 89 horsepower in the snout — is another in a lengthening line of Ingolstadt ’s products that deliver crazy-great performance with a refinement and absence of stiction that makes them feel like they are lubricated with angels’ tears. Or the fatty renderings of an enchanted ermine from some Russian folk tale. Whatever it is, these cars’ moving parts seem to commune in a way that has banished friction to the dustbin of physics.

This quality — which manifests itself as smoothness in operation, and absence of noise and vibration is even more notable because the S5 has so darn many moving parts. Obviously, there’s the lump of reciprocation under the hood, a slightly de-tuned version of the 4.2-liter direct-injection V8 found in the R8 sports car. With its super-stiff deck, counter-balance shafts, active engine mounts, lightened and micro-polished valve train assemblies and silicon-impregnated cylinder linings, this dual-cammer revs with a lightness, a willingness, that makes it feel like it’s topped off with 5 quarts of 0W-nothing-weight motor oil.

The S5 is fitted with a conventional six-speed manual transmission (automatics will come later, but there are no plans to offer the DSG “manumatic” gearbox so beloved by Audi-ence members). Not surprisingly, the S5’s clutch pedal action is light and precise, but it’s the way the clutch engages — with no palpable vibration, or even a dry whisper as it meets the flywheel — that is so uncanny. It’s like the clutch is a felt-buffing wheel stolen from Harry Winston. This refinement is no minor feat, considering the S5 sings 354 hp at 6,800 rpm and 325 pound-feet of torque at 3,500 rpm. When that clutch hits the flywheel it sounds like cattle getting romantic. Mooooooo.

Automobile dealerships are worried that 2008 sales will be worse than this year’s. Amid these concerns they are not ordering as many new cars and Trucks. This is the worst vehicle sales slump since 1998.

“I’m certainly being more cautious,” said Carl Galeana, president of the Galeana Automotive Group. “I’m reeling in what I’m stocking and am looking not to sell at the same rate that I sold at this year.”
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“If we don’t see some sort of boost, our orders will be reflective of that slowdown,” said Bob Thibodeau, a Ford dealer. “We certainly are seeing a little bit of an increase in our stocking levels. Sales are just not what we hoped.”

An 18-wheeler exploded in flames on a major interstate Thursday, killing one person and injuring another and sending a thick plume of black smoke towering over the area.

The driver of the Tanker Truck failed to see traffic slowing on Interstate 35 north of the Lake Lewisville Bridge. The driver took evasive action and struck a car, causing only minor damage and no injuries.

“But he lost control of his semi and struck a concrete retaining wall on the inside median,” Department of Public Safety Trooper Lonny Haschel said. The tanker, which was hauling gasoline, burst into flames and exploded.

A call reporting the blast came in around 1:40 p.m, said Denton County Sheriff’s spokesman Tom Reedy. The truck was fully engulfed in flames and one witness reported a man jumped out of the truck’s cab and was on fire, Reedy said.

Haschel said passers-by attempted to extinguish one of the victims’ burning clothes. That person and another occupant of the Truck were both transported by air ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.

Matthew Webb, of Krum, died after being taken to the hospital, a hospital official said Thursday evening. Roland Mattern, 25, of Saginaw, was in critical condition.

The two men were brothers-in-law, according to Lake Shores Baptist Church Assistant Pastor Ed Miller, who was acting as spokesman for the family.

“And both their wives are pregnant,” he told the Denton Record-Chronicle Thursday evening for the newspaper’s online editions. “We are trying to get Matt’s wife to go home, but she wants to stay here at the hospital to support Roland. It will be a long, hard recovery.”

The pastor says that Mattern has burns over 30 to 35 percent of his body, but is expected to live.

Traffic was shut down on both sides of Interstate 35E for about seven hours. Fire officials let the blaze burn out on its own to minimize environmental impact.

Hickory Creek is located about 30 miles northwest of Dallas.

Chris Weissensee used to consider sweepstake contests something of a joke, but the Sacramento auto repair shop owner changed his opinion after winning a $50,000 Ford truck Sunday.

The 36-year old owner of Capitol City European was one of 10 finalists flown to the NASCAR race in Florida last weekend to take part in the contest. Each contestant was told to pick a Truck key and try to start the ignition of a new Ford F-150 limited edition pickup. Weissensee had the lucky draw.

“It was amazing,” Weissensee said by phone Monday after arriving back home at the Sacramento airport.

“I was shaking when I was trying to put the key in the ignition. Then the truck started and I was jumping up and down.”

The odds were against him.

Ten thousand people entered the sweepstakes. The contest was open to people who do business with Ford by purchasing engines or transmissions. But Weissensee’s shop focuses primarily on foreign cars. He says he only bought one engine from Ford last year as a favor for a friend, and that made him eligible for the sweepstakes.

Rolls-Royce Wednesday said that a Latin American carriers, LAN Airlines, has selected the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 to power a new fleet of up to 41 Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
The potential value of the engine order and service contract to Rolls-Royce is over $2.4bn at catalogue prices.
The order, which is the first LAN has placed with Rolls-Royce, covers engines for 26 firm and 15 option aircraft with deliveries commencing in 2012.
In addition, the engines will be supported under a long-term TotalCare service agreement.
The Trent 1000 is the launch engine for all versions of the 787 Dreamliner, which enters service in 2008.
The engine has, like all Trents before, achieved on-time certification from the airworthiness authorities for all variants of the 787 and continues to set the pace on the 787 programme - first engine to run and first engine to be certified.