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.

Churchill Downs oddsmaker Mike Battaglia will wait until post positions are drawn Wednesday to decide whether he will establish Bodemeister or Union Rags as the early favorite for the 138th Kentucky Derby.

“If Bodemeister has a bad draw, then it’s got to be Union Rags,” Battaglia told USA TODAY Sports. “And if Union Rags has a bad draw, it would be the other way around.” He noted that the rail would be an extremely difficult position to overcome with a full 20-horse field anticipated.

According to Battaglia, the early odds on either horse will not be lower than 4-1, yet another indication of how closely matched the top contenders are. That is music to the ears of serious handicappers who will wager equally serious money.

CONTINUED at USA Today.

Rick Santorum’s convincing win in Louisiana’s GOP primary does little to change the delegate math that has rival Mitt Romney with a more than 2-to-1 lead, raising questions about whether he can generate broader appeal to win the nomination.

Santorum told supporters after Saturday’s win in Louisiana that the race was far from over, recalling the naysayers who said Ronald Reagan was too conservative to win the nomination.

“Ronald Reagan fought that battle in 1976 and he did something that had not been done since: as someone as a conservative running against the establishment, he won 11 states. Well tonight, thanks to the great people of Louisiana, we have won our 11th state in this primary fight,” he said.

But the road ahead is a difficult one for Santorum, who is slogging it out in what has become a game of numbers to clinch the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

CONTINUED at CNN. Shitty video of Santorum speech at link.

Front-runner Mitt Romney won the Illinois primary with ease Tuesday night, defeating Rick Santorum in yet another industrial state showdown and padding his already-formidable delegate lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Romney triumphed after benefitting from a crushing advantage in the television advertising wars, and as his chief rival struggled to overcome self-imposed political wounds in the marathon race to pick an opponent to Democratic President Barack Obama.

Returns from 29 percent of the state’s precincts showed Romney gaining 55 percent of the vote compared to 28 percent for Santorum, 9 percent for Ron Paul and 7 percent for Newt Gingrich.

Preliminary exit poll results showed Romney preferred by primary goers who said the economy was the top issue in the campaign, and overwhelmingly favored by those who said an ability to defeat Obama was the quality they most wanted in a nominee.

CONTINUED at AP.

Mitt Romney heads in to Illinois’s presidential primary this week with a handy win in Puerto Rico, pocketing the territory’s 20 GOP delegates in a bruising race that has become a numbers game for the Republican nomination.

With about 83% of total ballots accounted for early Monday in Puerto Rico, Romney had garnered more than 98,000 votes — or 83% of the total — based on unofficial results obtained from local party and election officials.

Rick Santorum was a distant second, at 8% with slightly more than 9,500 votes.

The other two candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, were barely registered in the race with 2,431 votes, or 2% of the vote, and 1,452 votes, or 1%, respectively.

CONTINUED at CNN. Video at link.

Rick Santorum had a big night. The price of anal lube must’ve spiked! He can thank the free markets he wants to destroy for that.

Santorum won Alabama and Mississippi last night. He got 35% of the vote in ‘Bama and 33% of the vote in Miss. Romney thwarted Santorum’s attempts at getting a trifecta with a win in Hawaii at 45%. Gingrich had a decent showing. Ron Paul however didn’t walk away with any delegates.

More on this later.

Mitt Romney won the Republican caucuses in Washington state, according to unofficial results early Sunday, giving the former Massachusetts governor a shot in the arm heading into Super Tuesday contests.

With 99% of the vote in, Romney had 38%. Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 25% and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had 24%. They were trailed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 10%.

At stake in the contest are 40 delegates.

“We’re in a good second place, but the good news is we’re doing very, very well in getting delegates,” Paul told supporters in Seattle, when about half of the vote had been counted. “The enthusiasm for the cause of liberty continues to grow exponentially.”

Washington’s caucuses come just three days before Super Tuesday, when 10 states hold primaries and caucuses. And because of that, all four major GOP presidential candidates campaigned in the state, hoping a strong finish would carry over to Tuesday.

State GOP chairman Kirby Wilbur predicted a large turnout and estimated between 500 and 1,500 did not vote in Kennewick city because of overcrowding.

CONTINUED at CNN.

Adele, who captured the world’s heart with an album about a broken romance, emerged as the top winner at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, winning six trophies including the prestigious trifecta of record, song and album of the year.

The singer, who also made a triumphant comeback from vocal cord surgery on the Grammy stage, sobbed as she won the night’s final award, album of the year, for “21.” It was last year’s top-selling album with more than six million copies sold and remains lodged at the No. 1 spot on this year’s charts.

Her victories tied her with Beyonce as the most wins by a woman in one evening.

“Mom, gold is good!” Adele shouted as she took the album of the year trophy.

The celebration of Adele, a big-voiced, soulful singer, came on a night where the Grammys marked the loss of one of music’s great female voices – and one of its most prized talents overall. Whitney Houston died the night before the Grammys, casting a shadow over music’s biggest night.

But while her death lent a somber overtone to the evening’s show, it did not overwhelm it, perhaps best proved by the show’s closing number, a rollicking jam session featuring Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Dave Grohl among others.

The night’s other big winners were Grohl’s Foo Fighters, who won five Grammys. They noted that they made their album “Wasting Light” in a garage.

“To me this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of making music is what’s most important. Singing into a microphone, learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that’s the most important thing for people to do,” Grohl said as the band accepted their best rock performance trophy for “Walk.”"It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about sounding absolutely correct. It’s not about what goes on in a computer. It’s about what goes on in here (your heart) and what goes on here (your head). … Long live rock ‘n’ roll!”

Among the evening’s performances was a dance-heavy number by Chris Brown, and performances by McCartney and Springsteen, who kicked off the show by performing his new song “We Take Care of Our Own,” a rousing song that references the troubles of the nation.

But the evening’s most moving moment came as Jennifer Hudson – who has called Houston an inspiration and one of her biggest idols – emerged to sing one of Houston’s signature songs, “I Will Always Love You.” Dressed in black, with only the accompaniment of a piano, Hudson appeared to fight back tears as she sang the song, ending with the line, “Whitney, we will always love you.”

CONTINUED at My Way.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Man, the last few days have been horrendous as far as the primaries have gone. Saturday night we got the results of the Nevada caucuses, which had Mitt Romney just barely getting the majority vote at 50.1 percent! Yes, Ol’ Mittens got the majority vote! Gingrich came in second with just 21.1 percent with Ron Paul in a close third at 18.8 percent and Rick Santorum in last with a dismal 10 percent. The thing to look at is that this was a horrible night for Santorum, who one would think would bow out at this point but luckily for himself, he didn’t, as you’ll see why shortly. Paul did well but not well enough even though he was just behind Gingrich. Romney killed it however and really solidified the fact that he is the man to beat in this race.. well as of Saturday anyway.

Now when it comes down to it, the race is really about delegates and even though Romney walked away with the most at 14, both Gingrich and Paul got a decent number: Newt at 6 and Paul at 5. Ricky Boy only got 3 in this contest. Now while Mitt Romney owned Las Vegas and Reno, Ron Paul had a strong finish in the south central part of the state in the largest county Nye, as well as neighboring Esmeralda County. Gingrich only took Mineral County and Santorum took none.

Now while these results might seem fine and dandy to some, there has been a number of reports pointing to voter fraud in Nevada. As I have mentioned in a previous article, voter fraud was suspected in the Harry Reid-Sharron Angle midterm election for Senate back in 2010, so this almost doesn’t surprise me. It’s funny how in the primaries where Romney has won, or was originally announced the winner, there has been some form of foul play reported. I’m not saying that Romney and his people are up to something, I’m just saying that shit doesn’t add up and homeboy is constantly the benefactor. Realistically, I shouldn’t spend too much time on this, as I need to look into it deeper and don’t want to speculate without all the evidence. Feel free to look into it yourself but I did post a story about it on The Swash a few days ago.

Moving away from the disappointment of Nevada, we come to the next stop on the campaign trail which is actually split between three states: Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. The godawful insane truth about this dark Tuesday night was that Rick Santroum walked away with a victory in all three states! America got rick roll’d and hard! The guy who has been the biggest dork dick in this election who should really have no chance at winning, just gave Mitt Romney a stiff uppercut to his man meat! Mittens, who was sure he had this whole show sewn up, was left with some seriously rotten egg on his face. To top that off, Gingrich wasn’t on the ballot in one state and only got third place and last place in the two other. Man, Newtie Bootie truly suffered on this dark day in American history. One positive however, is that Ron Paul, despite Santourm’s incredible performance, rock and rolled so hard in Minnesota that he blew Romney and Gingrich out of the water.

In Minnesota, Santorum got 45 percent with 6 delegates, Paul got 27 percent with 4 delegates while Romney got 17 percent with 2 delegates and Gingrich got 11 percent and 1 delegate. So even though Santorum did really well and so did Paul, neither still earned enough delegates to really sock it to Mitt, who is still riding high from those 50 delegates he ripped away from Florida last week.

In Colorado, Santorum and Romney were literally neck and neck by the time I fell asleep. Actually, last I remember, Romney was ahead by a point or two. In the end, Santorum got 40 percent with 17 delegates, Romney got 35 percent with 13 delegates, Gingrich got 13 percent with 2 delegates and Ron Paul only walked away with a single delegate after finishing at 12 percent. Colorado, another state where Ron Paul was bringing out the people and generating large crowds, ended up being all for naught for those of us who support the Constitution. I guess the Evangelicals were too numerous to be stopped in the Rocky Mountains. It’s truly exasperating to see Dr. Paul get so much strong support from the people yet somehow it doesn’t translate into votes. I guess there are more people in the boring religious sect, that are hiding in the basements of those megachurches, than we realize.

Missouri is another state that Santorum took by storm. However, winning Missouri is kind of pointless, as there were no delegates to be awarded. Santorum, Romney, Gingrich and Paul all walked away with no delegates, regardless of how the race went. Apparently they are supposed to hand out delegates sometime next month but the state’s whole caucus system is goddamned confusing and these caucuses were really just some sort of over-hyped straw poll. Regardless, Santorum got a disgusting 55 percent, which just makes me hate Missouri. He also won every county, which makes me hate the state even more. If Vincent Price didn’t come from that Jesus freak acid trip of a state, I’d lobby to have it removed from the United States. Romney got 25 percent, Paul got 12 percent and 4 percent went to some mystery candidate that only goes by the name of “Uncommitted”.

I’m really kind of speechless at this point, as I can’t believe anyone would vote for Rick Santorum, the worst choice for president, let alone three whole states worth of people! I guess this goes to show a few things. First, there is no super strong candidate, as the Republican collective isn’t backing just one guy. Romney may have been pulling away with this thing but Ricky Boy just stole his thunder. Secondly, due to the fact that there isn’t a strong candidate, the guy that Americans are choosing is different from region to region. This is a very regional race and despite what part of the country each candidate caters to, it is going to be the candidate that caters to the larger states that walks away with this thing. The final observation, based off of the two previous observations is that we’re completely fucked.

I will say this, the race has been so topsy turvy it’s insane and it provides for some real entertainment. This is like the World Series mixed with a trashy reality show and blended up with a circus sideshow; there is no other way to describe it. However, as much as it entertains, amuses and even gets under one’s skin at times, the results of this shit show are really what is important and at this point, those results are looking pretty damn horrible.

Former U.S. senator Rick Santorum rejuvenated his presidential hopes on Tuesday with a shocking sweep of the three nominating contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, dealing a blow to wounded front-runner Mitt Romney.

Even though Romney still holds strong advantages in financing and organization, his campaign will now have to refocus to fight back the challenge from the surging conservative Santorum.

Backed by a wealthy “Super PAC” that pays for attack ads against rivals, Romney had excelled in major contests thus far in the race. After big wins in Nevada and Florida in the previous week, he did little campaigning in Minnesota and Missouri and had been expected to win easily in Colorado.

Until Tuesday, Santorum had won only one of the first five Republican contests in the state-by-state battle for the Republican nomination to face President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

But on the first day of multiple nominating contests in the 2012 primary season, Santorum trounced Romney by 30 percentage points in Missouri. That vote was a non-binding primary, but has symbolic value as a measure of support in a big Midwestern state.

In Minnesota’s caucuses, Santorum won with 45 percent of the vote. But in another setback to former Massachusetts governor Romney, U.S. congressman Ron Paul was in second place with 27 percent and Romney was a distant third with 17 percent.

The race was closer in Colorado, but Romney had been expected to win easily. But Santorum won by 5 percentage points over Romney.

With eight contests to date in the Republican race – including the three on Tuesday – Santorum has now won in four states, Romney in three and former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich in one.

CONTINUED at Reuters.