Let’s have a shout out for J.F. Musial - NNN/Fast Lane Daily/Garage419 Producer & Team Polizei alumnus - who set the Uptown track record at Grand Prix New York with an amazing 27.965. Nice work, J.F. I guess you are a better driver than I am…but I bet you’re not better than Skolnick. Let’s find out.

Thanks, Mr. G.

Some things are above politics, so there’s no point asking how this interview came to pass. The G. Gordon Liddy is a car and a bike guy, as in Lingenfelter-modified Corvette and Harley-Davidson. Full on. And he loves cross-country racing. The bad kind. And he loved “The Driver“. FYI, I’m shocked at how few of my friends under 30 know of G. Gordon Liddy’s historic significance.  If you’re too lazy to read the aforelinked, buy some old issues of Soldier of Fortune and you might see some of his older work. If that whets your appetite, there was this little historical event.

Most importantly, he had a cameo appearance on Airwolf.

Enough background…my host - a man with great taste in haircuts - was kind enough to have me on his Radio America show. The topic? Let’s just say it involved driving. Here’s the audio clip. My interview starts around 28:00 and change…

Trapster, Trapster, Trapster…

We made it…and owe part of our success to Trapster. Don’t use it? Download it now. It’s free, and if you have an IPhone and like to drive…utterly indispensible. Of course, I use it on a Dash Express GPS as well…

…and today I’m off in Polizei 144B to visit Trapster HQ to learn its secrets straight from the source.

Team Polizei is on the move. Again. With neue piloten.

We’re packing up Polizei 144B and setting off on a cross-country jaunt with race driver and veteran Skip Barber/Audi Driving Experience instructor Rene Villeneuve and the vaunted Tim Ferriss, noted blogger, kickboxer (sport of the future!) and author of the New York Times bestseller The 4-Hour Work Week.

Polizei 144B has once again been freshly, er, refreshed by the Polizei stalwarts at Ai Design, Roy and Johnson are fueled on a cocktail of caffeine, their trademark manic banter and the Mission of Burma DLC for Rock Band (”That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate” being a deceptively tough track.)  We’ll be overnighting in Oklahoma City with 2008 Gumball US champion Jack Wheeler, meeting up with Rene and then setting off for Los Angeles.

Why, you ask? Along the way, we’ll be testing numerous cutting edge GPS/logging/tracking hardware & software, starting with some very interesting gear from Team Polizei’s new allies over at EveryTrail.com, along with a lot of new and as-yet unrevealed gear and tactics.

We’re just on vacation, of course, and we’ll be sharing much more in the hours to come. Tonight. Live tracking. Video. Real-time logging and content. Trapster. Convoys….

More to follow…

My gut says it’s totally cancelled. I’ll say it again. NBC’s US version of Top Gear will not air in 2009. Or ever.

That’s just my opinion, of course, but if one studies the timeline I assembled last May one mo’ time, throws in some new information I just acquired from two inside sources, considers the catastrophe that is Top Gear Australia, includes the fact that Top Gear USA isn’t listed on NBC’s upcoming lineup, and adds something as big as…er…the socio-econo-cultural state of the union, well…decide for yourself.

Let me put it this way. If you were an NBC exec, and if you’d just shot a bunch of pilots for your 2009 schedule, and if most of them were low-cost reality shows and sitcoms…but one of them was a high-cost remake of a British show featuring high-sports cars and various complex (and occasionally dangerous) stunts, and if your US version show hadn’t secured talent equivalent in stature, notoriety or the on-air rapport that audiences universally considered essential to the original’s success, and if the US economy’s decline had placed a dark cloud over any show that glamorized wanton spending and childish behavior…

…would you air it?

Alas, despite everything I’ve heard…I kinda want to see it. Just in case. Of course, it was pretty pathetic to hear about this.

The questions remain:

1) Where is the American Jeremy Clarkson?
2) Why can’t an American network recognize what makes the original Top Gear so great?
3) Can an American network make an automotive-themed TV show anywhere near as good as Top Gear?

“First has a quality all its own,” at least according to Polizei Master Pilot Michael Ross.

Recognize that image? How about the map? Yes, the infamous Gumball ALK CoPilot live GPS track which inspired Polizei 144 uber-kreator Josh Vietze to create our first new shirt design in two years. (Hint: Here’s the back-story.)

In production and weeks away, now you too can pre-order the commemorative Athens-Tirana GeoTrack T-Shirt by clicking through to the Polizei 144 store…

Part 2 of the official Garage 419 Invitational video went up this weekend, featuring lots of Farah gleefully spilling water on the track, which I think should be mandatory for all go-karting events. In the absence of any Finnish WRC veterans, it was no surprise to me that new Polizei recruits Skolnick & Vagios - karting experts of the highest order - took the day. Here’s the original story, Team Polizei’s video and the official video Part 1. If their fancy embedded flash player doesn’t work for you, check out Parts 1 or 2 in YouTube’s High Quality mode, because the Garage guys really did a great job making sure these look good even once having passed through YT’s (usually) crappy codec.

Thanks again to Team Polizei’s co-drivers Montana, Johnson & Russo, and to sponsors Piloti and Gudfud.

If you haven’t already donated to the Children’s Tumor Foundation - which was the point of all this, of course - here’s the link to donate online.

Matt Farah's Aston Martin Vanquish Gets Towed After He Breaks It Doing Donuts...

Expanding and extrapolating upon our low-budget Polizeisploitation flick, the minds at Garage 419 offer up their own expanded multicamera version of events, including characters like Farnbacher Loles‘ Roger Garbow, Jalopnik’s Ray Wert and Derek D. of Fast Lane Daily. Of course, by singling them out, we’re failing to mention a whole host of other people who lost. In all seriousness, it’s the most well-produced thing the 419 crew has put together so far. Roy makes reference to medieval warfare and lovemaking. Johnson regrettably reprises his “Iron Fist of Victory” schtick. Not shown, however, is the Aston Vanquish with the kaput power steering — a result of host Matt Farah’s early-morning donut antics. We did, however, get a picture of it being loaded onto the flatbed. Remember, schadenfreude wasn’t invented by Team Polizei.

A gripping Teutonic cop drama the likes of which you’ve never seen, involving Alex Roy, fundraising kingpin Bill “Wilhelm Deutschmark” Montana, Davey G. Johnson, Vinny Russo and the winning duo of Vagios & Skolnick. (ALEX WRITES: That’s nascent karting champion Zack Skolnick to you.) Strategy is employed. German accents are deployed. And victory’s mailed fist comes down upon the hordes, leaving a Polizei-shaped bruise in bold bas relief.

Piloti. Kevin Beard. Vagios. Skolnik. Montana.

Five names that shall live in Polizei infamy, for were it not for last minute Polizei Draftee KartPiloten James Vagios & Zach Skolnick - whom I inducted onto Team Polizei and christened Polizei 6 mere minutes before the start of the Garage419 Invitational - my own performance would not have been nearly enough to claim anywhere close to 1st place, even with the help of the my brand-new Piloti-supplied “Ingel” racing shoes (above right), personally gifted to me by designer and company president Kevin Beard (above left) only days earlier.

The greatest victory belonged to Polizei 1 co-driver Bill Montana, however, who - as of this post - raised $7000+ on behalf of the Children’s Tumor Foundation and demonstrated driving skills superior to my own.

Bill, Kevin, Zack and James…thanks. As for organizers J.F. Musial and Matt Farah, great job. We’ll get to the others in my event follow-up post.

As for Polizei 2, piloted by the so-popular-he-must-have-a-secret Vinny Russo and the automotive world’s Hunter S. Thompson (a.k.a. Davey Johnson), your crimes - well-documented and to be revealed in time - will never be forgotten by those present at GPNY.

Much more - including pics and some hilarious video - will go up later today…