President Obama’s eco-friendly EPA inked a green partnership deal with high-octane NASCAR Monday to promote recycling and environmentally-friendly products to the sport’s millions of fans.

At 6’6″, William “Big Willie” Andrew Robinson III — a bowler hat perched atop his head, his voice booming — cut an imposing figure among the youth of South Central Los Angeles during the 1970s. That figure both belied and contributed to his mission, which was to end gang violence and racial unrest through drag racing. Robinson died this past Saturday after a short illness. He was 70.

For a life lived in the furtherance of “peace through racing,” as was his mantra, Big Willie should get the Jalopnik Peace Prize. If there were such a thing.

His seemed an impossible task in a city whose racial entrenchment began decades before. Post-war racial violence in Los Angeles traced its roots to the 1920s, when blacks began to exit a claustrophobic ghetto, seeking elbow room in traditionally white areas, and were met with fists, blackjacks, knives, and gasoline bombs.

CONTINUED at Jalopnik.

Despite the somewhat erratic weather that plagued this past weekend’s Nürburgring 24 Hours, a pair of Audi R8 LMS ultra GT3 race cars managed to secure a one-two finish for the brand with the four rings at the grueling race.

Driving the overall winner was a German quartet consisting of Marc Basseng, Christopher Haase, Frank Stippler and Markus Winkelhock.

Together, they drove their Audi Sport Team Phoenix-backed R8 LMS ultra around the Green Hell 155 times over the course of 24 hours–the third overall victory for the team in the Nürburgring 24 Hours and the first for Audi.

Completing the one-two finish was Christian Abt, Michael Ammermüller, Armin Hahne and Christian Mamerow from Team Mamerow Racing.

CONTINUED at Motor Authority.

If you only know the late Carroll Shelby for his tuner cars, you’re missing an amazing story of how, during the mid-1960s, his little, nerd-filled race shop in Los Angeles helped Henry Ford II exercise his famous vendetta against Enzo Ferrari. Playboy editor A.J. Baime tells that story in his book, Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans.

Here’s an excerpt from Baime’s book that picks up from the day Shelby American assumed responsibility for building Ford’s racing sports cars, just about one year out from the company’s 1-2-3 victory upset at Le Mans:

…

Carroll Shelby dug his fingers into his thighs. He was sitting in the back of a small private plane with a couple of Ford executives. The engine buzzed like a gnat. At the helm, a Shelby engineer was piloting the plane onto a straightaway at Riverside International Raceway. The straight was a slightly downhill strip of pavement with a bridge at the end. As the bridge approached, the ground seemed to get farther away because of the gradient. The bridge kept getting closer and Shelby was getting nervous. He was himself a pilot, and he sensed they were headed for trouble.

Were they going to fly over the bridge or under it?

CONTINUED at Jalopnik.

A new leaked document reveals the exact layout and plans for the next Formula One circuit, the Grand Prix of America in New Jersey. The map explains some of the many challenges in bringing F1 to the New York metro area.

You can view the master plan in full here.

The track runs clockwise, starting along the Port Imperial Ferry Terminal on the Hudson in what will be the pit straight. The cars make a 90 degree left for Turn One, then quickly transition into the right-handed Turn Two. The cars then turn up to the great feature of the track: thePalisades.

The Hudson is banked on New Jersey by this massive rock formation — up past the George Washington Bridge, it forms a sheer cliff of exposed rock looking down on the river. Down at the track, it accounts for 150 feet of elevation change. Elevation change, traditionally, is what makes a track great and it has been seriously lacking from Formula One circuits built in the past fifteen years.

CONTINUED at Jalopnik. More photos at link.

Manchester City are officially the blue moon of British football, now that they’ve finished alone atop the English Premier League table.

The Sky Blues secured their first Premiership crown and first title in the top flight of English football since 1968 with a 3-2 win over QPR. They ended their fixtures with as many points as Manchester United, but earned the silverware in spectacular fashion on goal differential.

All looked to be lost when a 10-man QPR side went up 2-1, but the Blues stormed back in stoppage time, culminating with an unbelievable winner from Sergio Aguero to give the club a long-awaited league crown.

City came into the 2011-12 season as a contender after bringing in Aguero, Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy to bolster a squad that finished in third last spring. They spent the vast majority of the campaign in the top two, and regained control of their domestic destiny with a 1-0 win over arch rival Manchester United at the end of April.

It also marked the first time since the 2007-08 season that City swept the Manchester derby in EPL competition from United.

Roberto Mancini’s side fell behind Sir Alex Ferguson’s by as many as eight points in the standings in April after a 1-0 loss to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.

City did not drop a single point after that, while United went on to lose to Wigan and draw with Everton before losing to the “noisy neighbors.”

Man City’s run to the title was not without turmoil, though. An early-season spat between Mancini and Carlos Tevez led to the Argentine striker’s banishment from the club for four-and-a-half months. His absence opened up more opportunities for the mercurial Mario Balotelli, whose brilliance was often offset by fits of mischief, both on and off the pitch.

But, in the end, it was Tevez who wound up back in the starting XI, and City who will hoist Premiership hardware.

Source: Bleacher Report.

Garrett McNamara now has the Guinness World Record for the largest wave ever surfed after riding a 78-footer in November off the coast of Nazare, Portugal.

Mike Parson had the previous mark, riding a 77-footer off the Southern California coast in 2008.

The ruling became official on Friday by a panel of experts for the annual Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards.

McNamara told Petethomasoutdoors.com, “It’s amazing we get to do what we do, I am so grateful. The world record doesn’t mean as much to me, this is for the town of Nazaré and Portugal and for all myfamily and friends there.

“To be able to give them something to be proud of and inspire them… I didn’t want to get caught up in it all, but I have to tell you the truth, when they announced my name I got a bigger rush than probably on all the waves I rode this year.”

Source: CBS LA.

The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), who last month raised over $400,000 for abortions through its Bowl-a-Thon, touted that it provided money for a 14-year-old’s abortion as part of the group’s “real stories of abortion access.”

On its website in a post entitled, “Getting an abortion means getting a second chance,” NNAF highlights the story of Darcy, a 14-year-old who terminated her pregnancy with the help of the group’s “George Tiller Memorial Fund.”

“I’m pretty smart for 14, I think,” Darcy writes. “I love biology, especially the stuff on animals. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be a vet — I definitely want to start my own practice so that I make enough money and when I have kids I can be home with them,” she said.

After finding out she was pregnant, the girl writes she did not want to tell her mother, “But in the state where I live, minors can’t get an abortion without permission from a parent or a judge,” she said. “So I did end up telling her.”

Darcy said a clinic put her in touch with NNAF because the “abortion was going to cost more than our rent.”

“There’s no way that me and my mom could have come up with that much,” she said.

CONTINUED at CNS News.

The late Ayrton Senna was an almost mystical figure in the Formula 1 world, crediting much of his transcendent focus and nearly unconscious driving ability to his Catholic faith. But when discussing his spirituality in 1989, he said, “Just because I believe in God, just because I have faith in God, it doesn’t mean that I’m immune. It doesn’t mean that I’m immortal.”

Millions of fans would disagree to this day.

Eighteen years ago today, one of the worst weekends in Formula 1 history ended when Senna passed away in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix. His incident came two days after a then-young Rubens Barrichello suffered serious injuries in practice, and one day after Austrian Roland Ratzenberger perished in a crash during qualifying. In an eerily foreboding move, on the morning of his death, Senna set into motion the re-establishment of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association to push for greater driver safety in the wake of these accidents.

While many of his records have been surpassed, Senna’s name remains a staple of the Formula 1 record book. At the time of his death, his 41 wins ranked him second all time, and his 65 poles were one short of doubling second place in the category before Michael Schumacher surpassed him in 2006. He won four consecutive races on two separate occasions, three championships (in 1988, 1990, and 1991), and six Monaco Grands Prix.

Senna was a throwback, one of the last remaining drivers who asserted himself as a leader in the sport with businesslike efficiency and surgical precision. Beating his opponents was nothing personal; it was just his job.

And like any effective mercenary, jarring emotions would not compromise his set of skills, especially not a hostile work environment.

While Alain Prost purposely signed contracts to block Senna from joining the same team and Nigel Mansell took a two-year detour into CART while still holding his Drivers’ Championship, Senna was out there to race and nothing more.

The closest that Senna came to that level of F1 prima donna was in 1993, when an engine snafu landed his McLaren team with an underpowered Ford engine. Senna began the year running on a race-by-race basis, then eventually agreed to stick with the team for the full year.

He still finished second in the championship.

But what truly set Senna apart was his humility and integrity, especially in comparison to other drivers. His rivalry with Prost will always be one of the most legendary in the sport, not only because of their on-track accomplishments but also due to their disparate personalities. Started by a 1988 incident in Portugal in which Senna nearly forced Prost, then his teammate at McLaren, into the pit wall at full speed, the next few years were marred by various misjudgments by Prost and FIA president Jean-Marie Balestre, who, prompted by a Prost protest, temporarily suspended Senna’s license in 1989.

At Suzuka, in 1990, the penultimate round of the championship, Senna led Prost, now with Ferrari, by nine points for the championship. While Senna beat Prost for the pole, Balestre himself elected to place Prost on the left-hand side of the track, the traditional pole side, which would have given him an advantageous line into the first corner. Senna protested by refusing to yield the racing line, plowing into the back of the Ferrari, eliminating both cars, and thus guaranteeing that he would win the championship.

Senna explained a year later that he would not stand for Balestre’s unfair decision-making, dating back to the license suspension.

If you tried to compromise the integrity of a race, Ayrton Senna would make your world a living hell.

That integrity didn’t always frustrate his opponents or teammates, however. During that 1993 season at McLaren, Senna’s teammate was Michael Andretti, still in the prime of his career after winning the 1991 CART title. But McLaren had also signed Mika Hakkinen as a reserve in case Senna were to leave, and the future world champion was ready to race.

In fact, son Marco Andretti has alleged that McLaren intentionally sabotaged Andretti’s car to drive him away—until Senna spoke up.

“I think my dad’s biggest supporter over there was Ayrton Senna,” the younger Andretti told the Associated Press in 2008. “Because he was one of the few who knew what was really happening in the team, and I think he believed in my father. It was at Monza that he really said, ‘Give him my car. Give him exactly what I had.’” Andretti finished third in that race, scoring his only Formula 1 podium.

An intensely focused competitor, Senna also had a lighter side, as he frequently played practical jokes on McLaren teammate Gerhard Berger. When Erik Comas crashed heavily in qualifying for the 1992 Belgian Grand Prix, Senna ran across the active track to become the first respondent on the scene, and later visited Comas in hospital.

He also felt a great responsibility to help eradicate poverty in his native Brazil, having donated a large portion of his wealth to aid poor children shortly before his death.

Ayrton Senna has been gone for 18 years now, but his legacy will always carry on. His nephew, Bruno, carries on the family legacy, driving for the same Williams team with which his uncle ran his last race; meanwhile, a 2010 documentary bearing his name won awards at film festivals worldwide before finally receiving its United States release this March.

But for those longtime fans of the sport who were lucky enough to see Ayrton Senna race, no driver and no documentary will ever come close to replacing him. Not Schumacher, not Vettel, not even his own bloodline.

He may have denied his own immortality, but the rest of us never will.

Source: Bleacher Report.