Nobody will ever accuse Tony Stewart of lacking ambition. The three-time NASCAR Cup champion and hall of famer owns a multi-car NASCAR team, a World of Outlaws operation, a historic speedway, a Sprint car sanctioning body and founded the SRX made-for-TV showdown for racing legends, just for openers. Following his nuptials with Leah Pruett, Tony Stewart Racing has also joined the straight-line crowd, and made a notable debut at the National Hot Rod Association’s historic season opener, the Winternationals at Pomona, California.

Success in pro-level drag racing is measured in large part by the number of elimination rounds you advance once competition starts. By that standard, TSR shoe Matt Hagan, a three-time Funny Car king with the NHRA, grabbed the number-three spot in Funny Car qualifying and advanced to the semifinal round, where TSR’s 500-cu.in. nitro Hemi swallowed a cylinder during a loss to Robert Hight. As for Mrs. Stewart, Pruett powered to the number 7 slot on the qualified ladder in Top Fuel before being stopped in the opening round by Antron Brown. The NHRA pros are in Phoenix this weekend, two weeks before their annual Florida stop during the historic Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway, where we’ll be in attendance.

Spend any time in front of your big screen and you’ll periodically see the telecommunications giants boasting through their commercials that 5G wireless connectivity is just around the corner and promising to make us, and everything we do, run as fast as Tobor, the Eighth Man. Maybe, we’ll see. But with connectivity and infotainment now established as prime selling features for new vehicles, the industry is making its own steps to board the 5G express. This week, Audi of America held a joint presence with Verizon at the latter’s huge tech campus in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, announcing their plan to build 5G capability into Audi’s entire U.S. model lineup, beginning with selected Audis during the 2024 model year.

So, what’s it mean? For one thing, Audi’s interconnection with the Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband network will give drivers and passengers a faster in-vehicle WiFi experienced than they’ve likely ever imagined. Passengers will have the ability to download and stream entertainment faster than ever while underway. Audi will gain the ability to perform over-the-air software updates to their vehicles, much like smartphones do today. Infotainment and navigation systems will gain 3D mapping capability. The biggest potential change, arguably, will come when a cellular-based Verizon network now under development will allow direct car-to-car communication, which will be a critical element as Audi begins work on self-driving technology.

Anything associated with Formula 1, even in the past tense, spells huge money, and slinging vintage cars at an event bookended with an F1 round just takes everything in the ionosphere, especially in this place. Dubai, unlike virtually every other state in the Middle East, is not blessed with gigantic petroleum reserves. As a result, the emirate’s leadership has focused on finance and tourism to underpin its booming economy. We chose “booming” intentionally: Besides having the world’s tallest building and an F1 date, Dubai has the second-highest number of five-star hotels of any nation on Earth. Fast cars are therefore a good fit here.

The second edition of the Historic Dubai Grand Prix Revival has been expanded to three days this year, running from November 25th through 27th five days after Formula 1 storms the same Dubai circuit that will host the vintage festival. The organizers say the event will be limited to 100 premium historic racing cars. The inaugural format of sports cars only is also being expanded to include veteran examples from the worlds of both F1 and endurance racing. Expect a huge crowd, because nearby Qatar will be hosting the World Cup at the same time Dubai celebrates going fast. Big money!

Imagine a book that took an entire chunk of global motorsport and not only digested its history into a single manageable volume, but was so comprehensive, chockablock with data and photos, and engagingly presented that it’s hard to put down. Impressive praise, to be sure, but here’s a book that richly deserves it, albeit from an unlikely source. We were perusing the website of Grand Prix Models in England, which is much better known for selling premium-quality diecast replicas, and spotted this history of rallying, published by the Portugese automotive and rally historian Francisco Santos, and luckily decided to take a flyer and order it.

That turned out to be a wise decision. World Rallying 125 Years is simply the best-condensed, most readable, and data-loaded book on this iconic global motorsport that we’ve ever encountered. The authors of this 275-page hardcover edition are Santos, Jose Barros Rodrigues and the late rally historian Martin Holmes, with forewords contributed by luminaries such as Jean Todt and Carlos Sainz. The book encompasses the sport’s full chronological scope, in what’s best described as linear, quick-hit fashion that is jammed with facts, related to both rally events and technology, many of them obscure. The great Mille Miglia started as a rally and is addressed herein. If you want quick tech histories of the Mini Cooper, Ford’s Kent engine and the three-cylinder DKW, all rally icons, you’ll find them. So are handicapping formulas, the evolution of stage routes over the year, and a year-by-year guide to both drivers and marques. It’s dizzying and delightful. This may be the single best automotive book we’ve encountered in many months. According to current exchange rates on the Grand Prix Models U.K. website, the price works out to about 59 U.S. dollars. The book can also be found at a website that the publisher maintains. If you think we’re gushing here, you’re right.

We’re going to be discussing more about rallying in a moment on this Sunday of the Daytona 500, but first, let’s discuss a vehicle that can let you play race driver, or international rally star, to your heart’s content. Subaru builds an array of interesting vehicles, none of which can give you goosebumps like the new-for-2022 WRX compact. Regardless of trim and performance level, the WRX is still the closest thing to an all-out rally car that the authorities will let you slap with license plates. The pricing starts at an entirely reasonable $29,105.

We say so confidently because no matter which 2022 WRX you select, you’re in for a ride, because every WRX boasts Subaru’s turbocharged 2.4-liter flat-four with 271 horsepower and an electronically managed wastegate, churning its fabled asymmetrical all-wheel drive with torque vectoring. A standard six-speed manual driveline is augmented by a fast-shifting Subaru Performance Transmission that’s standard on the new, line-topping GT level, whose own base MSRP begins at $41,895. This is a serious car, riding on the Subaru Global Platform and newly available with Eyesight driver-assist technology. In ascending order, the WRX levels are base, Premium, Limited and GT.

Jeep has clearly, and successfully, parlayed a page from the Harley-Davidson marketing playbook into a measure of its own success, allowing buyers to execute a strong level of personalization over their products, because Jeeps are immediately recognizable thanks to their timeless, utilitarian profile. The welter of boutique customization that permeates the Wrangler world is starting to migrate into the rest of the Jeep lineup, demonstrated by the fact that customers can now hit the dealerships and place orders for the 2022 Jeep Compass equipped with the new Altitude Package.

Which is what? With an MSRP of $1,645, the Altitude Package augments the Compass by adding 18-inch alloy wheels in a Gloss Black finish, matching badges and exterior accents, a black-finished roof and bright metal exhaust tips. Inside are new black premium cloth-vinyl seats with integral black stitching, a wrapped steering wheels and premium black accents. Among the safety features offered across the Compass lineup are Full-Speed Forward Collision Warning with Active Braking, Blind-spot Monitoring and Active Lane Management System.

It’s fair to say that in much the same way as Carroll Shelby did across the Atlantic around the same time, Colin Chapman regarded road cars as a necessary nuisance, a way to generate the capital to build the racing cars that truly energized him. That’s not to say a streetable Lotus from that era is any less a piece of Chapman inspiration. As proof, lots of people point to the original Lotus Elite, which debuted at the close of the 1950s as a flyweight coupe with exquisite handling. A new book from Veloce Press in the United Kingdom tells its full story.

What a profoundly beautiful car. I had occasion once to photograph one that had been freshly restored by Ragtops & Roadsters of Perkasie, Pennsylvania, to this day one of the most perfectly finished automobiles I ever captured digitally. The book is Lotus Elite, by the British historian Matthew Vale, another in Veloce’s list of titles on highly relevant cars.

If you’re at all familiar with Porsche’s heritage in the United States, you undoubtedly know about the legacy of Vasek Polak, who opened the nation’s first standalone Porsche dealership in 1959 and was brick in the foundation of its U.S. racing legacy, fielding privateer cars that ranged up to Can-Am ferocity. Polak’s descendants are keeping his legacy alive through memorabilia sales, and have picked an ideal place to hold them.

We know a guy who swears by the LA Lit and Toy Show, which specializes in all kinds of collectibles for Porsche and Volkswagen enthusiasts specifically, and which takes place this year on February 26th at the LAX Hilton in Los Angeles. Vasek Polak Jr. and his daughter Maurie will be on hand selling autographed archival photos and reproductions of the original Vasek Polak dealership license-plate frames that would set off your new 911 quite appropriately. The Polak family also operates a website where you can learn their history and score cool stuff.

It’s been uncommonly cold, and wet, and cloudy, but this is still mid-February in Florida and that means Speedweeks are trucking on full force around Daytona Beach, with major action on the dirt already unreeling itself, amidst some weather woes, on the bullet-fast half-mile dirt at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville. By any subjective measure, last night’s World of Outlaws Sprint finale, captured by David Gravel for his first Volusia win of any kind, was the largest crowd in the track’s history, with two-mile backups in both directions along SR 40 leading to the track. As NASCAR cranks up at the big track, action at Volusia will resume following today’s break for the Super Bowl, which no right-thinking track promoter would ever challenge.

Action at Volusia resumes tomorrow with a mix of classes including the new Xtreme Outlaw Series for non-wing Sprint cars, the World of Outlaws dirt Late Models and the best news for transplanted northeasterners like yours truly, the return to Florida of the Super DIRTcar Series big-block Modifieds. The guy you’re looking at, Stewart Friesen, is the ruling wunderkind of the open-wheel, center-seat stock cars, and will be in action with the other beasts of the northeast right through Saturday, with the week’s full schedule providing particulars. Racing starts at 7 p.m.; we strongly urge an early arrival because the Volusia crowds have been staggering so far.

Toyota had already earmarked more than $2.3 billion to modernize critical powertrain production plants in Tennessee and West Virginia when all of a sudden, the U.S. automotive market shuddered from both supply issues and a marked increase in buyer enthusiasm for electric vehicles. Those realities have prompted the world’s largest automaker to commit an additional, combined $90 million in additional upgrades to both Toyota facilities.

The West Virginia powertrain plant will receive a total of $73 million in additional funding from Toyota, which will increase its capacity to build hybrid transaxles to up to 600,000 units annually. Due to their heavy use of additional electronic components, transaxles for hybrid vehicles are typically more complex and heavier than their purely mechanical counterparts. A related project is going on at Toyota Tennessee, which will see a new $17 million investment in casting technology, which will allow the plant to fabricate up to a million transaxle casings per year, some of which will be destined for West Virginia operations, along with more than 1.8 million engine blocks annually.