Fun Stuff

There's still about a month left before Codemasters' ; GRID 2 racing game hits the shelves, but we've already brought you detailed coverage of the game and its features. Today, we get an extended look at the multiplayer aspects of the game.With up to a dozen competitors across discplines as diverse as endurance racing, drifting, touge, time attack, and more, the driving should prove engaging and difficult.A livery editor gives the player control over their car's appearance, offering the opportunity to make a unique vehicle even when facing a pack of cars of the same make and model. If past experience with other games is any indicator, it's sure to result in some eye-popping color combinations, too.Linked together through the RaceNet system, players can keep track of their stats and progress as challenges and objectives are attempted and met.www.motorauthority.com 

Vodafone has turned to weddings in its latest campaign to get better customer acceptance. The telco – which some users are said to call Vodafail in tribute to its poor coverage record – is portraying a bride’s worst nightmare to promote it having no data dramas.The new ad was produced by creative agency Ogilvy, the makers of the successful ad series Rhonda and Ketut for AAMI insurance.The ad shows the groom-to-be and his mates discussing potential vehicles to use as the wedding car – and the one finally chosen is guaranteed to awaken his fiancée’s inner Bridezilla.This is the second commercial in a story arc following the engaged couple, with a previous campaign responding to the ongoing criticism Vodafone had received over its coverage, by guaranteeing cancellation in the first 30 days if the new customer wasn’t happy.The ads come as Vodafone’s market share continues to drop with a loss of about 1.3 million customers and over $700 million since the beginning of 2010, whilst Optus and Telstra sit comfortable at the top of the Australian Telco segment.

The first trailer for the long-awaited biopic about legendary Formula One driver Niki Lauda has been released, confirming that the upcoming movie, Rush, looks to be just as dramatic and captivating as 2011’s brilliant Senna.The new movie, which hits cinemas nationwide in September, has been directed by two-time Academy Award winner Ron Howard and features actor Daniel Brühl (Inglourious Basterds) in the lead role and Chris Hemsworth (The Avengers) playing Lauda’s nemesis, James Hunt.It centers on the epic battle between Lauda and Hunt in the 1976 Formula One World Championship and was filmed in historic locations in the UK, Lauda’s native Austria and even at the Nürburgring race track in Germany where Lauda suffered his famous crash that almost killed him and left him scarred for life.Following the crash, Lauda, driving for Ferrari that year, got back behind the wheel after missing just two races to challenge Hunt, who was with McLaren.In the final race of the season, in Japan, Lauda chose to retire from the race due to heavy rainfall and his own safety concerns (he was unable to blink because of facial burns from his fiery Nürburgring crash), essentially handing the title over to Hunt who successfully completed the race, and ultimately won the championship.Lauda’s career resulted in vast improvements to F1 safety, including the end of competition on the Nürburgring (races are now held at the separate GP track). While Lauda himself suffered permanent and disfiguring injuries, there’s no way to estimate the number of lives he ultimately may have saved by helping to modernize the sport of motor racing.The life story the three-time world champion is well worth the read, from the days where he needed to finance his own participation in motorsports with bank loans, right up until his later years in the commercial airline business. Amazingly, Lauda is still involved in F1, serving as a senior exec at the Mercedes AMG team.www.motorauthority.com 

Following the conclusion of the controversial Malaysian Grand Prix a fortnight ago, the rumour mill has been working overtime with news Red Bull Racing driver Mark Webber may quit Formula One at the end of the current season in order to join Porsche for its 24 Hours of Le Mans campaign in 2014.Webber didn’t hide the fact that he was upset with the outcome of the Malaysian race, where he was passed by team-mate Sebastian Vettel despite team orders directing both drivers to maintain their current positions, though he's made no suggestion he was considering quitting the sport.It was Germany’s Bild that first reported Webber had been in contact with Porsche about possible interest in the new Le Mans campaign. In addition, Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz is reported to have said that it was possible Webber could leave the team, although the Australian had his full support for a 2014 seat at Red Bull.Webber has been closely linked with Porsche for several years and even bought a 911 GT2 as one of his personal cars. He also sampled Porsche's last Le Mans winner, the 1998 911 GT1, at a Red Bull event in 2012.Of course, Webber is no stranger to Le Mans. Piloting a Mercedes-Benz CLR prototype during practice at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans, Webber’s car spectacularly become airborne, back-flipping during both practice and race-day warm up events.Should Webber end up leaving his Red Bull seat, we are sure there will be no shortage of drivers eager to replace him. Some of the possibilities hinted at in the past have included current Lotus driver Kimi Räikkönen as well as fellow Aussie Daniel Ricciardo of Torro Rosso.www.motorauthority.com 

The animatronic wizards behind some of the creatures in Prometheus and the Harry Potter films have unleashed a monster you can drive. Not on public roads, of course. And drive is probably not the best word for piloting the six-legged 2.8-metre Mantis Hexapod – even though it’s powered by a 2.2-litre turbodiesel engine.There are no figures on what kind of power and torque the Perkins engine outputs, but it drives the 1900kg Mantis at a leisurely 1kmh – roughly the speed of CBD traffic, then. The creators, Micromagic Systems, say the machine has the potential to speed up to 3kmh if they give it a bit of tinkering under … whatever passes for a bonnet on the Mantis.And if traffic slows to a stop, the 2.8-metre monster’s claim to be the largest all-terrain operational hexapod robot in the world should mean you’ll be able to clamber right over the top of every vehicle in the snarled streets, with the three hydraulic actuators in each leg offering the flexibility to stomp pesky hatchbacks into submission.“This is definitely the largest hexapod we have built so far,” says Micromagic Systems founder and Mantis chief designer Matt Denton. “It’s been called an instant design classic and an inspiring engineering project for the next generation.”The idea for the Mantis was sparked in 2007, he said, and following private funding in 2009 the team spent three years building it. It’s available for hire, and offers you the chance to both drive it from the cockpit – using a computer panel – or remotely via a WiFi link. 

There is no boot, no back seat, no radio and no way you could drive one on the road.  It's closer to a ground-bound missile than a family-friendly Toyota Camry.A Top Fuel car will shoot from a standing start to 160km/h in a barely believable 0.8 seconds, subjects its driver to five times the force of gravity at take-off, can top 500km/h inside 400 metres, needs parachutes for braking, and guzzles fuel at the rate of 45 litres for those same 400 metres.The fuel itself is closer to dynamite than regular unleaded and costs around $6.50 a litre. But that's what it takes to make a genuine 8000 horsepower - 5885 kiloWatts - from a comprehensively supercharged 8.2-litre racing V8 engine that shoots three-metre flames from its exhaust pipes.The noise is genuinely deafening and the ground shakes when a pair of cars leaves the starting line together. The Top Fuel numbers make a Formula One car look slow, until you remember that it can only run in a straight line and only on a desert-try track that does not break the traction of its fat slick back tyres. Oh, and it will run dry after 400 metres.I've driven all sorts of very fast cars, from Porsche turbos to an F1 Renault, and a Top Fuel car is the only one that genuinely scares me. I've never been tempted to take the wheel.But Larry Dixon does it for a living and loves it, even though he spun through 360 degrees at more than 250km/h last weekend when an axle snapped during a run at Willowbank Raceway in Queensland."It makes everything else look like you're pushing around a wheelbarrow,'' Dixon tells me. Somehow Dixon, the second-most successful Top Fuel driver in American racing history, bounced back from the near-disaster to re-set the Australian records in his first visit to Australia.For the record, he clocked 4.543 seconds for the standing 400 metres, hitting a top speed of 534km/h.This reporter is on Twitter @paulwardgover