In two weeks the U.S. Treasury will auction 11 supercars valued at nearly $3 million, including a Ferrari Enzo. If you ever bought a piece of electronics at Best Buy that didn't work, here's where your cash may have gone.

Last December, Russell Cole of Deerfield, Minn., was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison on fraud and tax evasion charges after bilking Best Buy for $31 million over several years. Cole's company Chip Factory scammed Best Buy via an online supplier auction; Chip Factory would submit low-ball bids to supply certain parts, then hike the price it actually billed Best Buy. Cole bribed a Best Buy employee to keep the scam going, often sold defective parts to the chain and hid much of his and Chip Factory's income from the Internal Revenue Service.

Those ill-gotten millions allowed Cole and his family to build a $2.65 million home in suburban Minneapolis; when zoning rules barred anything larger than a two-car garage, Cole built a separate, ornate garage to house his collection, which included one of almost everything, from a replica Cobra to a Bentley Continental GTC. While a Porsche Cayenne and Mercedes S550 sedan were the daily drivers, the Cole garage also included a Ford GT, a Ferrari F430 and a '05 Lamborghini Murcielago roadster.

Cole's wife Abby Rae, who had founded Chip Factory in her basement before she married, was sentenced to three years probation; Russell Cole contended his wife had left him in charge of the business and had no idea about how big his scams had grown. As Cole's lawyer said: "He took one small step, which led to another and then another. He then made a fortune and somehow rationalized that he'd actually earned it himself."

The auction by Manheim is set for April 19 in Milwaukee, where the Enzo will likely draw the top bid.

Source: Gizmodo

Remember that driver of the red Corvette who authorities say was zipping along in northern Minnesota at 178 miles per hour?

The cops say he was drunk at the time.

Michael James Johnson, 40, had a blood-alcohol content of 0.12 percent while roaring along a county road on July 9 near the tiny town of Menahga in Wadena County, according to court records. The legal limit for driving in Minnesota is 0.08.

Johnson, who lives in Menahga, is charged with fourth-degree drunken driving and careless driving, County Attorney Kyra Ladd said Monday.

He has a court hearing Aug. 30, but he retains his driver's license in the meantime, Ladd said. "He can be out there driving right now," she said.

Johnson has "flown under the radar" and hasn't had a moving traffic violation for the past nine years or so, Ladd said, but he had "a lot of speeding violations" and other tickets before that, Ladd said. "He's been fairly busy here."

Johnson wasn't actually caught on radar going 178 mph, but the passenger in his two-seat sports car reported that speed, according to the State Department of Public Safety. A telephone message seeking comment was left at Johnson's home Monday.

Source: StarTribune

A man fired from a Texas auto dealership used an Internet service to remotely disable ignitions and set off car horns of more than 100 vehicles sold at his old workplace, police said Wednesday.

Austin police arrested Omar Ramos-Lopez, 20, on Wednesday, charging him with felony breach of computer security.

Ramos-Lopez used a former colleague's password to deactivate starters and set off car horns, police said. Several car owners said they had to call tow trucks and were left stranded at work or home.

"He caused these customers, now victims, to miss work," Austin police spokeswoman Veneza Aguinaga said. "They didn't get paid. They had to get tow trucks. They didn't know what was going on with their vehicles."

Ramos-Lopez was in the Travis County Jail on Wednesday with bond set at $3,000. The Associated Press could not find a working phone number for his family. More in the jump...

The Texas Auto Center dealership in Austin installs GPS devices that can prevent cars from starting. The system is used to repossess cars when buyers are overdue on payments, said Jeremy Norton, a controller at the dealership where Ramos-Lopez worked. Car horns can be activated when repo agents go to collect vehicles and believe the owners are hiding them.

"We are taking extra measures to make sure this never happens again," Norton said.

Starting in mid-February, dealership employees noticed unusual changes to their business records. Someone was going into the system and changing customers' names, such as having dead rapper Tupac Shakur buying a 2009 vehicle, Norton said.

Soon, customers began calling saying their cars wouldn't start, or that their horns were going off incessantly, forcing them to disengage the battery. Norton said the dealership originally thought the cars had mechanical problems.

Then employees noticed someone had ordered $130,000 in parts and equipment from the company that makes the GPS devices.

Police said they were able to trace the sabotage to Ramos-Lopez's computer, leading to his arrest.

Norton said Ramos-Lopez didn't seem unusually upset about being fired.

"I think he thought what he was doing was a harmless prank," Norton said. "He didn't see the ramifications of it."

Source: Comcast

Darwin almost had another!

The theft occurs around 5:49 in, moments after it was parked. Unbelievable. The car is a 2005 blue, Pontiac GTO with IL Police Memorial plate: GOAT. Please call the Chicago Police Department if you see this around...



Source: YouTube

Not often do you see a Corvette balancing precariously on a telephone wire.

But motorists on Warner Avenue near Magnolia Street in Fountain Valley got a look at the peculiar sight Monday morning.

At about 11 a.m., the Corvette traveling westbound on Warner approaching Magnolia collided with a car trying to turn left into a hand car wash business, said Fountain Valley police Lt. Ken Hounsley. The force of the collision caused the sports car to land back-end up on a telephone pole support wire.

There were no injuries, according to Hounsley.

Source: OCRegister

This is the terrifying moment a British photographer cheated death as an out-of-control drag racing car careered towards him out of control. Andy Willsheer kept snapping even as the 250mph car spun towards the crash barrier at Pomona Raceway in California.
dragster.

And yet closer: In the blink of an eye the dragster was almost on the Briton... but he kept the viewfinder of his camera clamped closely to his eye. Miraculously, the wrecked vehicle landed just feet away from the photographer, who escaped unharmed.

The high-powered machine, capable of going from 0-60 mph in under a second, skidded off the track after its right side wheels hit an oil slick.

Only the concrete barrier prevented Willsheer from being killed by stopping the car dead just three feet away from where he was standing.

‘The crowd were yelling out for him to get out of the way and he kept on taking pictures,’ said one eyewitness.

‘He really is lucky to be alive, but he must have taken some great photos.’

Safety teams shut down the engine as soon as it stopped and driver Steve Gasparrelli also walked away unhurt.

Source: DailyMail

I bet he didn't see that coming.

This blower is a gear drive only type system that is designed to make 3200+ horsepower, 45 psi, and flow over a hurricane-like 5400 cfm. The gear drive system on this blower is the same unit you will find on the F3. This is a limited production piece (obviously) and is designed for extreme drag racing.

More info in the jump!

Mechanics were supposed to be fixing a leaky radiator, but when the owner of a £30,000 Vauxhall Monaro car collected it from the local garage, he discovered it had been taken on a joyride at speeds of 125mph

The owner of the car, who doesn't want to be named, had installed a Roadhawk black-box recorder three months earlier.

When he left his car for repair at the garage in Redditch, there was a quarter of a tank of petrol left. When he collected it, he noticed the tank was empty.

"I looked at the video from the Roadhawk and was completely stunned. They had taken it out for a spin on the A435 at 120mph.

"When I confronted the garage they denied it. Then I told them I had the video and they admitted everything and apologised."

The Roadhawk device records video, GPS data and g-forces for every journey.

Video captured during the incident, which has been posted on YouTube, shows the driver overtaking cars and lorries on the A435 Alcester Road between Redditch to Portway.

The vehicle speeds past a garage at 100mph, before hitting a narrow slip-road at 90mph and continuing through country lanes.

The owner said: "The outside of that lane is marked off and lorries sometimes park up there. If you go wide on that corner at that speed you could easily slam into the back of one."

The 5.7 litre Vauxhall Monaro has a top-speed of 170mph and won Top Gear's best Muscle Car award. West Mercia police confirmed they are investigating the incident. The owner of the garage said he had seen the video but refused to comment.

British supercar make Keating has announced that its Keating TKR has become the fastest production car in the world (unofficially). The car, which made its debut at this year’s MPH Show featuring Top Gear Live at London’s Earls Court, is capable of hitting a top speed of 260.1 mph – that’s 3 mph more than the existing title holder, the Shelby Aero TT. It also beats the Bugatti Veyron by 7 mph.

Power for Keating TKR comes from a 7.0L engine that is capable of producing 1,800-hp. Other technical details will be made available at a later date.

The top speed record was done at the Salt Lake Flats in California last month. Keating must hit 260.1 mph once again for the Guinness Book of World Records to make it official.

Last we heard, Shelby Supercars said that its 2009 Ultimate Aero is gunning for a world-record speeds of 270 mph, topping its current record of 257 mph. Seems like they have some competition from Keating.

Source; eGMCarTech

This test was for IIHS's 50th year anniversary in the safety research business! The dummy in the Malibu suffered only minor leg injuries while the dummy in the Bel Air would have died instantly, this really shows how auto safety has progressed! Continue reading to watch the video!

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You name it, Joshua Bracci was ticketed for it.

The 21-year-old man led police on a harrowing 13-minute chase Tuesday night, hurtling through the upstate New York town of Greece at speeds clocked at 111 mph, authorities said. Bracci was given 56 tickets for that wild drive, police said. He was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment, first-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle, driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, unlawfully fleeing police, resisting arrest and criminal mischief, among several other offenses, according to the Democrat and Chronicle.

To shake off police, Bracci allegedly turned off the lights of his car. Residents helped out by pointing out to police where he was going. The chase ended on Jade Creek Drive, a dead end street at 8:24 P.M., just after Bracci backed into a patrol car, police said.

Bracci was arraigned and remanded to Monroe County Jail. Bail was set at $25,000. He'll have to return to court for a hearing on Friday. Chances are, he won't be driving.

Source: AOL

That's the message from a Northeastern Kentucky family that's threatening to sue Papa John's Pizza in a dispute over a recent company contest.

"Papa John's Road Trip" was a nationwide contest that solicited people to help locate John Schnatter's 1971 Z-28 Camaro, a car he sold in 1983 to help save his father's bar.

Last month, Jeff Robinson of Flatwoods, Ky., came forward as the car's current owner and claimed the $250,000 prize. But, some of his neighbors claim they are the rightful winners because they first notified Papa John's about the car's location and its current owner. Continue in the jump...

Billie Slone told WLKY the Schnatters sold that car to her husband in 1983. She said he sold it off several years ago. When her son learned about the contest, she said the family began researching the history of their former car.

"My daughter got online to look at the specifics of the description of the car and, as it turned out, the car was purchased in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and my husband was working in Jeffersonville, Indiana, at the time," she said. "So we thought: 'wow, there's several coincidences here.'"

The Slones said a title search revealed their former car was, in fact, the car Schnatter wanted back.

"We knew who owned the car all along, even after my dad sold the car," said Erin Pope Slone.

Billie Slone said she contacted Papa John's with the information, believing her family had qualified to win the reward. Slone cites advertisements and a press release that promised the money to whomever could "reveal the car's whereabouts."

"We initiated contact with Papa John's and had conversations with them and told them everything we knew, and at that point believed we had fulfilled our obligation to win the $250,000."

Papa John's vice president of corporate communications said the Slones don't qualify for the reward because the contest rules clearly state the winner had to transfer the title to the company.

"They sold the car nine years before the contest came out, so there was no way they could qualify to be the winner," said Chris Sternberg.

Sternberg said the company has offered to pay the Slones $25,000 for helping locate the car.

"We feel we're going above and beyond," he said.

The Slones allege the company changed the rules mid-contest to exclude them from claiming the prize money. Sternberg said the only rule change increased the reward from $25,000 to $250,000.

Jeff Robinson told WLKY that when Billie Slone first approached him about the car, she didn't tell him about the contest, rather that she had located the car's original owner and he was willing to pay Robinson $125,000 for the car.

Robinson said Slone requested the car's Vehicle Identification Number, but he said he didn't give it to her, because he knew about the contest and was suspect of her motives. Robinson said a friend had e-mailed him about the contest prior to his encounter with Slone, and that after the encounter, he did his own research and learned the car had once belonged to Schnatter.

Slone denies lying to Robinson about the car. She said she asked him to split the reward money with her in light of the fact that she had notified Papa John's about the car's location and owner.

She said her family will sue Papa John's if the company doesn't give her family the $250,000 prize money.

"It's disappointing. It really is," said Sternberg. "Money makes people do strange things."

Source: WLKY

Robert Caton, 50, went to the supermarket to remonstrate with managers after the bed he ordered was delivered without a mattress. Unhappy with their response he flew into a drunken rage before driving his 1983 Rolls Royce Silver Spirit through the store's plate glass window as shoppers and staff dived for cover.

Moments before he had asked a security guard how long it would take to evacuate the store. Six women were treated for cuts, bruising and shock after his car smashed into the store and demolished two check outs.

Caton, of Cusden Drive, Andover, admitted dangerous driving and failure to provide a specimen of breath and was remanded in custody until September 25, when he will be sentenced.

He denied a charge of causing criminal damage reckless as to whether life was endangered and this was dropped by the prosecution.

After the hearing at Winchester Crown Court, prosecutor Tom Wright said Caton had driven his car into the store following a row about an order he had made with Tesco Direct.

Mr Wright said: "There was an argument about a furniture order and they did not deliver a mattress with a bedroom set.

"Staff in the store were trying to help him, but they weren't getting anywhere with customer service because it was a telephone order from Tesco Direct, not from them.

"The staff were on the phone trying to help him, but Caton was intoxicated and was getting agitated.

"Then he went and got in his car and had a conversation with at least one security guard and asked him how long it would take to evacuate the store.

"He said he was going to drive his car in there. A little while later he drives the car up to the glass and nudges it, and then reverses a bit and puts his foot down. "He went through a low brick wall and then through the glass and smashed into a till and went about 15 feet into the store."

Source: Telegraph