The Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) has announced the results of its annual Canadian Car of the Year competition yesterday at the CIAS in Toronto. Just as I had suspected, the 2010 VW Golf GTI gets the nod.
John White, President and CEO, Volkswagen Group Canada Inc. commented, “We are very proud to win this very prestigious award… GTI is the heart and soul of Volkswagen. To have the Golf GTI named Canadian Car of the Year today by Canada’s automotive media is a very proud moment for us.”
I was doing live updates for Autonet.ca, which you can check out here along with some of my colleagues work. For exclusive photos and more info…
Not long before Christmas, a friend, colleague and fellow AJAC member, Kevin Corrigan, asked me if I would co-drive/navigate for him in the 2010 Targa Newfoundland tarmac rally. Seeing as he’d just purchased a shiny orange fully-built RWD rally car from the UK and I’ve been wanting to do this for sometime now, it was impossible to say no.
Forza Motorsport 3 is out for Xbox 360 and I’ve finally had some time to sink my teeth into it a bit. The short is this game tops the racing sim market. I played Sony’s Gran Turismo Prologue and FM3 delivers a closer-to-life driving experience. My reasons are plentiful, but the biggest difference might well be the virtual tire physics that developer Turn 10 Studios has built in to the game. Using either a standard controller or the MS wireless racing wheel do you get a sense of tires touching the road.
The breadth and scope of this game is what auto enthusiasts slash racing gamers have been waiting for. More on that (the long) later.
I’ve assembled a few quick photos of my first original car design in FM3. The game supplies a limited set of graphics to use, so I had to create all of the graphics, stickers, logos, etc. myself in-game using the livery editor. A full photo shoot of my virtual JDM Shining Monkey Lancer Evo 10 GSR is coming soon. For now, it’s a work in progress.
Alongside TestFest every year, the Automobile Journalist’s Association of Canada (AJAC) hosts an awards banquet to reward its members in a host of different writing, photography and layout categories. I haven’t won anything for my writing to date, but I did take home a couple photography awards in my first and second year as an AJAC member in 2003 and 2004.
The Pirelli photography competition always has hundreds of entries in published and unpublished categories. This year was no different. But, of those hundreds of submissions, only six are ever shown. The two winners, of course, plus first and second runner-ups in both categories.
My hat is off to all of the winners (and the losers)! As one of the losers, my photos don’t get seen, which has always bothered me a bit, so this year, I’ve decided to show the winners what they were up against.
Here are my entries in both published and unpublished photos for the last two years. Please enjoy and your constructive comments are welcome.
2009 Pirelli Photo Contest:
Nissan 370Z in Red Rock Canyon Nevada (2009 unpublished category)
Hyundai Genesis Coupe by Night (2009 unpublished category)
Nissan Cube Trying to Blend In (2009 unpublished category)
Nissan 370Zs in Red Rock Canyon Nevada (2009 published category)
Sky High Toyota Prius (2009 published category)
Mitsubishi Sportback Ralliart Down by The Docks (2009 published category)
The first round of voting is over and there are winners and losers. Here’s a video of me thrashing around the Ste. Catharines Niagara District Airport runway test track in the one of the winners:
They’re not all this crazy and “TestFest” is not all fun and games!
Seventy of Canada’s top automotive journalists spent a week in the picturesque tourist town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. We weren’t there for the scenery or the wine tasting, though naturally many do partake (long after driving shoes and gloves are put away of course).
My fellow journalist members of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) and I were all driven by purpose, to find out who makes the “Best New” cars, trucks and SUV/CUVs in this great country.
As part of AJAC’s annual Canadian Car of the Year Awards program, we put a whole whack of these to the test through three full days of intensive, back-to-back testing and evaluation off and on the track.
TestFest has felt quite compressed this year and there just hasn’t been any quality time for photography or video work. Further complicating things is the fact it rained for all of day two, leaving the Ste.Catharines airport (where the event is held) a muddy bloody mess. Only thing missing is the wrasslin’ because it’s everywhere. Continue reading My most coveted ride at TestFest…
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