“S M Napier - Bleacherreport.com” plus 4 more

S M Napier - Bleacherreport.com
Families 'cross over' to the smaller side of SUVs - detnews.com
Inmate gardeners at Rikers Island grow vegetable crops that feed the ... - New York Daily News
Traffic Q & A: Why do collectors need just one plate? - Tacoma News Tribune
Fiat CEO: Chrysler worse than we thought - CNN Money

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 08:48 AM PDT

S M 's Bio

Woooooooo Hooooo, we beat the Super Bowl Champs and yes we do have a No. 1 Receiver in rookie Johnny Knox.

I also go by the moniker, Horn Fan on several other sites, if your looking for me you found me on B/R.

I'm a avid auto racing fan, but like NASCAR best, but the NCWTS is my favorite series these days and the series reminds me of old school NASCAR. I'm talking NASCAR 20+ years ago, like the mix of the young talent, with the wily veterans and they put on the best show of the three top series.

I'm the community leader of the NCWTS page, write anything and everything about the truck series. Some of my articles have made zimbio.com, catchfence.com, jayski.com, ASK.com on various driver pages in all three series, dalyplanet.com, my tribute to the late Ron Hornaday Sr is posted on ronhornaday.com in his In Memory section, have a Austin Dillon article featured on teamdillonracing.com and had Joan Ren the wife of Rick Ren comment on my article about her husband.

But what I'm most proud about is that Brian Scott, one of the CWTS drivers, joined B/R to comment on a article I wrote about him and is a member of the truck community.
Truck Series: Horn and Brian Scott are my two favorites drivers, along with Happy & the GOAT. I also like Rick Crawford & James Buescher, J.R. Fitzpatrick, Timothy Peters, Gabi DiCarlo, Caitlin Shaw, Johnny Benson and Rowdy.

Nationwide: Happy & KHI, Kelly Bires, Michael Annett, the Speeddemon & Justin Allgaier.

Sprint Cup: Bobby Labonte & Happy are my favorite drivers and follow the Speeddemon.

I also follow Austin Dillon, T-Mac, Bobby Labonte Racing in the Lucas Oil Series, the Camping World East Series, NHRA, Indy Series, F1 and Monster Trucks to follow the legendary Grave Digger.

I'm also a Chicago Bears fan, both Charles "Peanut" Tillman & Craig Steltz are my favorites of the current team. While NASCAR is my game on B/R, don't be deceived I really do know my NFL.

Always been a fan of the Under Dogs, can't help it back in 1992, the Underbird made me a believe.

I'm old school, my two other passions are reading Westerns, with a few Mystery/Thriller authors mixed in and listening to Music. Like anything from 80's Metal, to Blues, with a few Country artists mixed in, to Southern Rock , mostly older artists but do like these current artists Gov't Mule, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Shinedown and Black Stone Cherry.

Play a little harmonica, my beverages of choice are Miller High life & Keystone Light (Gotta support the official beer of the Camping World Truck Series.).

All my writing is dedicated to my Dad, miss you Pop.

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Families 'cross over' to the smaller side of SUVs - detnews.com

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 08:27 AM PDT

Kimberly S. Johnson / AP Auto Writer

DETROIT -- Suburban mom Shana Rampersad is looking for a new family car, and it's got to be fuel efficient, stylish and roomy.

That eliminates sedans, sport utility vehicles and even minivans such as the Nissan Quest that's been carrying the Rampersads around New Jersey for years.

On the top of her list is a crossover, a type of vehicle that's built like a car but looks like a downsized SUV. They offer more storage space than a traditional car and use less gas than SUVs, which are built on truck frames. And they're a good fit for families like the Rampersads, who are tightening their belts but still want enough space to haul around children, pets, luggage and sporting gear.

Crossovers -- including the Ford Flex, Chevy Equinox, Nissan Murano, and top-selling Honda CR-V -- are now among the fastest-growing segments in the auto industry. Their share of the U.S. market has nearly tripled since 2002 as SUVs' share slid by more than half.

For many families, downsizing to a sedan from a minivan or SUV would be too drastic; the equivalent to moving back into a small city apartment after owning a large suburban home. The crossover offers a compromise in tough times, when parents are forced to cut back on spending, fearing they could lose their jobs or see gas prices jump back to last summer's $4 peak.

Because of a tight household budget, Rampersad and her husband have decided to wait until next year to buy a new car. And it'll be a Ford Flex, a four-door that seats seven. The Flex's rectangular design has softened angles and blends the low length of a minivan with the sportier front-end of an SUV. Its second and third rows fold down flat, creating enough room for two adults to camp out.

Although her 1997 Nissan Quest minivan is "excellent" in terms of reliability, the mother of two girls, 9 years old and 9-months in Carteret, N.J., says it's style is "ancient" and it doesn't have enough versatility.

The Flex would comfortably seat Rampersad, her husband, daughters and two small dogs on the many trips they make across the Hudson and East Rivers to visit relatives in Queens, N.Y.

"We can't get the strollers, an overnight bag and a couple of other things into a passenger car," says Rampersad, 34. "We looked at a couple of SUVs, but they were horrible on gas. Living in New Jersey, you're driving everywhere."

The growth of crossovers points to the end of supersized family rides.

"When I was a kid, it was the station wagon. When I had children, it was the minivan. In the 90s it was the SUV, and now it's the crossover," says George Pipas, Ford's top sales analyst.

Earlier this decade, when gas was cheaper and bank accounts flusher, beefy SUVs and minivans emerged as the preferred family vehicle. In fact, between 1999 and 2006, their combined sales made up the largest segment of the auto market, peaking at 27.8 percent market share in 2000.

Now, sales of those bigger vehicles are being displaced by crossovers.

Crossovers made up 21.7 percent of all U.S. vehicle sales for the first eight months of the year, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank, up from 7.4 percent in 2002. They're the second-best sellers behind midsize cars.

Meanwhile, SUVs have seen their share of the market shrink to 6.3 percent from a peak of 17.7 percent in 2002. Because of worries about gas prices and the environment, sales are unlikely to return to the high levels seen in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Many crossovers start in the $20,000 range, compared with SUV price tags of around $30,000. Although the Rampersads priced out a Flex at about $33,000, including the options they wanted, the SUVs they saw would have cost a lot more to buy and maintain.

Crossovers are not new, with a few first appearing in the mid-1990s. Now, more crossover models are available, and several newer ones sport more luxurious-looking designs, offering more curb appeal than minivans, the official car of Soccer Moms.

"We'll see it capturing a larger part of the industry going forward," Jeff Schuster, executive director of forecasting for J.D. Power & Associates.

Automakers are taking notice. Ford is stepping up production on its Escape, one of its three crossovers. Sales of the Escape, among the top 10 vehicles purchased under Cash for Clunkers, rose more than 49 percent in August from a year earlier.

This fall, Honda Motor Corp. plans to introduce a new crossover vehicle, the Honda CrossTour, offering a new, slightly larger option to its popular CR-V.

The CR-V, which gets 23.5 mpg, captured the largest share of the crossover market last month, with a 52 percent increase in sales. Edmunds.com estimates that 12,000 of the 30,284 CR-V sales last month were generated by the clunkers program.

"Eight out of 10 (potential) sport utility buyers are getting the CR-V," said Tom Rzeppa, new car sales manager for Troy Honda in Troy, Mich. when comparing CR-V purchases to Honda's Pilot SUV.

General Motors Co. said its new vehicle lineup would include only cars and crossovers over the next several years. Sales of its Chevrolet Equinox crossover rose nearly 189 percent in August.

The Equinox gets an average of 27 miles per gallon, with a base level version starting at $22,440. By comparison, its Chevy Tahoe SUV cousin gets 16.5 mpg and starts at $36,965. Chrysler's 2009 Town and Country minivan gets an average 20.5 mpg and starts at $27,160.

But Shana Rampersad doesn't have to parse data to know that crossovers are becoming the vehicle of choice for families. She just looks around her suburban neighborhood.

"Everyone's driving a crossover; you don't really see many minivans," she said. "They're not the cool car for moms to drive anymore."

Inmate gardeners at Rikers Island grow vegetable crops that feed the ... - New York Daily News

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 07:51 AM PDT

BY Rosemary Black
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Updated Monday, September 21st 2009, 10:43 AM

On a bright September morning, a late summer harvest is underway in a robust garden populated by vibrantly shaded bell peppers, tomatoes, oversized zucchini and spaghetti squash. But high barbed wire fences snake through and around these fertile fields, the low, grim buildings are nearly windowless, and the men tending to the crops wear white and orange jumpsuits.

At Rikers Island, where 14,000 inmates live, the planting gets underway in the spring and cycles through the summer into the fall. The gardens yield an impressive assortment of fresh produce, most of which is donated to City Harvest. In fact, this year the agency trucked away 18,000 pounds of fresh vegetables, all of which will be go to soup kitchens and food pantries.

"Getting fresh food that's just pulled from the ground is very hard," says Jennifer McClean, vice president of operations for City Harvest. "It's rare and a real treat for us."

The program at the jail, officially known as the farm and horticulture program, is directed by Carrolle Banfield. She's in charge of securing the plots of land, taking patches wherever she can find them. She then arranges for the soil to be turned over with a tractor, and supervises the inmates as they work. At any given time, about 15 inmates who are considered low-risk work in the program. The compost, Banfield notes, is made from recyclable garbage at Rikers, and no artificial pesticides are used.

And the vegetables that City Harvest trucks pick up each week delight the New Yorkers who come pick them up from food pantries. "Take the zucchini," Banfield says, pointing to a lush crop. "Zucchini grows extremely fast but it's very tender. These can be stuffed, or grilled. Some people make them into zucchini bread."

They inmates who garden have blossomed in much the same way as the squash, basil and zucchini that they water and weed.

Jeffrey Anderson, who says he's eagerly awaiting the watermelon harvest, loves the herbs because the smell reminds him of his grandfather's farm down south.

"Gardening has a tranquil effect on me and gives me comfort and peace," Anderson says. "It helps me stay focused on what I need to think about. I consider it medicine for the mind."

Andrew Haigler, a father of three who says he was an auto technician before he began serving a sentence at Rikers (he'll be released in January), was busy loading pounds of vegetables into the City Harvest truck as he talked.

"This year, we were able to plant cabbage and broccoli and then we turned over the field and got tomatoes and cucumbers," he says. "To actually see these growing is pretty powerful. I didn't know that a green pepper turned from orange to red. I thought they were completely different vegetables."

This year, the inmates' gardening work translated into 18,000 pounds of fresh vegetables that City Harvest transported to the needy.

Banfield says that this year the gardening program, which she began directing in 2001, recruited teenaged inmates to work in the herb garden. She hopes that next year, more of the 16 to 18-year-olds will become involved in the program.

"It's a cycle," she says. "It just keeps going around. You see those vegetables getting put on a truck? By 7 p.m. tonight some children in the city will be eating frsh vegetables."

Haigler says he plans to continue gardening when he gets out of jail. "I can afford a couple of packages of seeds," he says. "I'd like to garden with my kids. I look at it this way. Sure, I've done a little time, but look at what I've done with that time."

As for Anderson, harvesting fresh vegetables that will go to feed the city's poor and hungry is a way to do something nice for others.

"It helps me to give something back to someone in need," he says. "And to know that at the end of the day, I've helped someone."

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Traffic Q & A: Why do collectors need just one plate? - Tacoma News Tribune

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 07:51 AM PDT

Traffic Q & A: Why do collectors need just one plate?

DAVID WICKERT; The News Tribune
Last updated: September 21st, 2009 08:43 AM (PDT)

Question: Reader Donivan Fowlkes of Tacoma notes that state law requires vehicles to have a front and rear license plate – unless you're driving a "collector" car.

"Why does the state only issue one rear plate for owners of 'collector' vehicles?" Fowlkes asked. "We see a lot of these same cars and trucks used as daily drivers. Why then am I required to have two plates?"

Answer: Brad Benfield, a spokesman for the state Department of Licensing, confirms that most vehicles are required to have a license plate mounted on both the front and the rear of the vehicle. The exceptions include motorcycles, trailers, campers and collector vehicles.

According to state law, a collector vehicle "may only be used for participation in club activities, exhibitions, tours, parades, and occasional pleasure driving."

"Because they are intended to be display vehicles, our state Legislature must have determined that one license plate would be sufficient to meet public safety needs and to enhance the ability to display these vehicles as automotive history," Benfield said.

He said the fee to license a collector vehicle is $35 plus all other required licensing fees the first year of registration. A collector vehicle registration is a permanent registration and is not renewed annually.

Got a question about traffic congestion, construction, spending or other transportation issues? Send it to traffic@thenewstribune.com. Include your name, hometown and daytime telephone number. We'll answer as many as we can. Find an archive of previous answers at www.thenewstribune.com/news/traffic/qa.

Originally published: September 21st, 2009 12:21 AM (PDT)

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Fiat CEO: Chrysler worse than we thought - CNN Money

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 06:39 AM PDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The situation at recently rescued Chrysler Group is even more dire than first thought, the CEO of Italy's Fiat -- which came to the aid of the U.S. automaker -- said last week.

"We were surprised by how little had been done in the past 24 months," Sergio Marchionne told reporters in Frankfurt, Germany.

Chrysler will present a revised business plan in November, Marchionne told reporters.

"We have to be absolutely clear about what we want to do with Chrysler and, as a management team, where the organization is going to be in five years," Marchionne said, according to the industry newspaper Automotive News.

Unlike General Motors, which has continued to roll out new and redesigned products even as it entered and exited bankruptcy, Chrysler has had little to tout. Its most recent new market entries are the Dodge Challenger muscle car -- essentially a re-bodied Dodge Charger sedan -- and the Ram pick-up.

The only new product Chrysler has entering the market this year is an industrial-duty version of the Ram truck. After that, a new version of the Jeep Grand Cherokee mid-sized SUV isn't expected until the middle of next year.

Even if the Grand Cherokee is a terrific product, its timing is unfortunate, said Michelle Krebs, senior analyst with Edmunds.com.

"The 2011 Grand Cherokee is an SUV being launched into a market that doesn't favor SUVs," she said.

In terms of smaller cars and more fuel-efficient crossover SUVs, nothing is expected from Chrysler in the near future.

Industry analyst Todd Turner of Car Concepts Automotive Research, speaking from the floor of the Frankfurt Motor Show, found it difficult to believe Marchionne's assertion that he didn't know how little work had been going on at Chrysler.

"I'm a little surprised that he was surprised," he said.

More likely, Turner said, Marchionne is laying the groundwork for drastic actions that will be announced in November but may have been planned all along.

"That is that Chrysler is over, basically," he said of Chrysler's flagship car brand. "Within five years, you're going to see nothing."

Chrysler also makes Dodge and Jeep vehicles.

Even if the Chrysler name survives, Turner predicted, the vehicles marketed under that name will be Fiat products.

On the other hand, Marchionne may simply be enjoying his freedom to be more honest now that the Chrysler deal is completed and laying the groundwork to make himself and Fiat seem all the more like saviors. suggested James Bell, market analyst for the auto Web site KBB.com.

"If they didn't come in as the proverbial white knight, Chrysler would be going through liquidation right now," he said.

Chrysler had no comment about Marchionne's statement to the press.

In its deal to rescue Chrysler, Fiat took a 20% stake in the struggling automaker in exchange for partnering with Chrysler on new products, especially small and mid-sized cars . Fiat did not invest any cash into Chrysler and, Marchionne told reporters, does not plan to do so now.

He said he hopes no outside investment will be needed as part of the new restructuring, according to Automotive News.

Marchionne said he expects U.S. auto sales, industrywide, to total about 11 million vehicles next year. If demand doesn't go up to that level, from the current level of roughly 10 million units, Chrysler may have to close more factories, he said, according to the newspaper.