Weekly Digest - 7 June 2010
HPD to Sponsor NASA Honda Challenge Series - Honda Performance Development (HPD) has reached agreement with the National Auto Sport Association (NASA) to become title sponsor of NASA's Honda Challenge Series, a multi-class championship open to Honda racers competing in cars ranging from Civics and CRXs to S2000s and Acura NSXs. In addition, HPD will for the first time be offering Honda Challenge participants $500 to start the 2010 NASA National Championships. The Honda Challenge is divided into five performance-based classes, ranging from H1 to H5, with individual vehicles assigned specific minimum weights to equalize competition among various models. H1 includes the Honda S2000 and Acura NSX; H2 models include the 2006 Honda Civic Si, Integra Type R and Honda Prelude VTEC; the Acura Integra GS-R and other Honda Prelude models are included in H3; while various Civic, CRX and Integra models are included in H4 and H5. More here.
You can check out the HPD website at http://racing.honda.com/hpd/
Last week I made a news entry about workers at a transmission plant in China going on strike. Looks like a deal was struck last Friday and workers have returned to their roles with a few improvements. The Japanese automaker said the workers, who had returned to the job a few days ago pending a final deal, had accepted “additional cash and benefits” in exchange for agreeing to end their strike. The workers had been seeking a raise of about 75 percent. Honda offered them a 24 percent raise earlier this week. More here and here.
Looks like ASIMO has been spending some time in Lausanne, Switzerland acting as an ambassador to the opening of a new state-of-the-art learning centre. "The reaction to ASIMO was quite extraordinary. Each performance was fully booked and the sound of cheering - from all ages - rang out around the auditorium on ASIMO's every move. Such was the level of interest we organised an additional demonstration.
There's a long term review (6 months) of the Honda Insight which might be of interest for those after a hybrid. I was intrigued by the prospect of spending six months with a Honda Insight as my main form of transport. Partly because it would really give me the opportunity to find out whether the hybrid’s methods of encouraging Green driving really worked, partly to find out whether it cut the mustard as a family hatchback and partly because I knew I’d pretty much have the car to myself.
Check out the Youtube video at the bottom of the first page and also make sure you check out all other pages of the review (the navigation buttons/links don't appear to be that good).
