It’s a beautiful morning to wake up and smell the roses. Monterey Car Week has kicked off, it’s summer in the northern hemisphere, and your morning digest of important, bite-sized pieces of car news is here. Today, motorsport could be part of the Olympics, car part sourcing just got more stringent, the Nissan Frontier gets an extension of life, and more. Welcome back to The Morning Dump.
Ask What Your Country Can Hoon For You
Planning for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics is well underway, and Reuters reports that some new sports are on the table. If you’re wondering what that has to do with a car website, I’ve bolded the really important bit below for emphasis.
Flag football and cricket have been shortlisted along with baseball-softball, lacrosse, breakdancing, karate, kickboxing, squash and motorsport.
Motorsport, huh? Hot damn. Whenever the Olympics decide to add a new sport, it must first pass approval by local organizers, at which point it gets kicked up to the International Olympic Committee for top-level confirmation. Then, and only then, is a new Olympic sport born. As Jalopnik notes, the FIA has pushed for karting to be included at the Games for a few years now, so it could be something along those lines.
Regardless of what form it takes, the prospect of motorsport being on the roster is cause for excitement. Sure, the Race of Champions is amazing and conceptually similar, but making motorsport an Olympic sport would open it up to entirely new audiences. I say the more people interested in going fast, the better.
Supply Chains Just Got More Complicated, But For A Good Reason
Cheap car parts imported from China are about to experience new complications. While this doesn’t sound great for consumers, it’s actually a good thing. See, China isn’t exactly known for a spotless human rights record, and Reuters reports that America is stepping up enforcement of sourcing regulations.
Increased inspection of products destined for auto assembly plants by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) could signal difficult times ahead for automakers who will need solid proof that their supply chains are free of links to a region where the U.S. believes Chinese authorities have established labor camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.
When legislation targeting products that may have been made with forced Uyghur labor was established last year, it initially focused on stuff like clothes and solar panels. Now, it’s reportedly expanding to auto parts, raw materials, and lithium-ion batteries. Stuff that could really hit the auto industry hard if the proper documentation isn’t in place, as violations could slow the trickle of parts needed to build new cars. Even in a rebounding market, it’s still worth it—consumer ease shouldn’t come above others’ well-being when ethical issues exist.
Now, before you go accusing me of pointing out other countries’ problems while conveniently ignoring issues at home, just know that it goes both ways. For one, I’d prefer if my license plates weren’t made using prison labor. Everyone deserves to work voluntarily and with dignity regardless of background.
Extended Frontier
If you fancy the new Nissan Frontier but don’t yet have the scratch for one, don’t worry—you may have just been given a little more time. Automotive News has obtained an internal memo that claims “production of the current-generation midsize Frontier at Nissan’s factory in Canton, Miss., has been extended two years beyond its previously expected redesign, now carrying into the 2029 model year.”
So, what spurred the change? As with most extended model cycles today, it may have something to do with the shifting tides of propulsion. Basically, Nissan may need more time as it builds out EV production:
In the memo, Nissan didn’t offer suppliers a reason for the life cycle extension, but one supplier briefed on the matter, who asked not to be identified, told Automotive News that the previously planned changeover would have come just as the Canton factory is gearing up to build new Nissan and Infiniti electric vehicles.
Simplifying the introduction of new models assembled at the same plant is an entirely prudent reason for extending the Frontier’s lifecycle, and it’s not like the Frontier is on the bleeding edge of midsize truck tech. The last one had a 17-year model cycle, and the new one is refreshingly old-school compared to the likes of the Toyota Tacoma, Ford Ranger, and GMC Canyon.
Faraday Future, Which Still Exists (???), Delivers Its First $309,000 Car To A Customer
I bet you haven’t thought about Faraday Future in a while. Electrek reports that Faraday Future’s first consumer model has finally been delivered, the first $309,000 FF91 2.0 Futurist Alliance (yes, seriously). Does this mean that Faraday Future has shaken off its tumultuous past of executives leaving, models being delayed, and the founder filing for personal bankruptcy? Hardly. It seems that Faraday Future is riding the coattails of all-AI everything, the popular tech buzzword of the moment that has an uncertain future. Per an earlier press release:
As FF officially enters the 2.0 stage of development, the Company believes that the future development of products and technology in the spire mobility industry will be characterized by FF’s four new trends of All-AI, All-Hyper, All-Ability, and Co-Creation.
In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious, none of these words actually mean anything. Sure, they’re shiny, but cars don’t run on hype. Will artificial intelligence buzzwords be enough to differentiate Faraday Future from the litany of ultra-luxury EVs coming to market? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
(Editor’s Note: I love that somehow, Faraday Future survived long enough to get in on the AI hype. Bullshit just comes naturally to that company. —PG)
Your Turn
If motorsport makes it into the Olympics, what specific disciplines would you like to see? While something along the lines of karting makes sense, Olympic rallycross sounds like it could be just the tightest thing ever. However, maybe you’re a touring car fan, or want to go completely bonkers with something like Stadium Super Trucks. There really are no bad options here.
(Photo credits: Garage 56, Amazon, Nissan, Faraday Future)
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I want to see Tim “The Toolman” Taylor take on Bob Villa in a souped up lawn mower contest.
Wow. The Olympics seem to have deviated a LONG ways from Greco-Roman wrestling and uh…running, eh?
Motorsports is such a broad topic that could include motorcycles, automobiles, boats, airplanes, tractors, lawn mowers and on and on. Thus, anything with an engine or motor, duh.
Yes, there’s skill for these but the cost of entry only works for the wealthiest countries. I cannot really see a lot of third world country entries in this category.
Yeah I am against this. Keep it human powered.
But that’s just cycling, which is already an event.
Or rowing, also an event.
There’s already horse dancing for the rich.
There’s some fairly old precedent. Motor boat racing in 1908, and various types of car racing in 1900.
When I think of motorsport olympics I actually think moto…cross, particularly with the tracks can be inside an arena, they can do tricks on jumps, but I thought the sport had to be done in a certain number of countries before allowing admittance, maybe that is too.
Probably the biggest drawback to motorsport in the Olympics would be the cost of the vehicles being used (+ maintenance, crews, etc.) so maybe electric karting makes the most sense. Standard motors, batteries and maybe even chassis to keep things fair. It would be totally up to driver skill ideally (rather than who has the largest budget)
Why are the Olympics still a thing? They’re incredibly exploitative, both to the athletes and the host cities.
How much is LA going to spend to host the Olympics in the midst of a homelessness crisis of epic proportions? #priorities
I have to be honest, I thought many countries had realized the cost of hosting the events and the IOC facility requirements were prohibitive and then you end up with buildings without a purpose. I seem to vaguely recall the IOC was actually having trouble finding a country for 2028 and LA stepped in with a plan to reuse existing facilities.
Olympic Tesla fire extinguishing
<insert paris hilton thatshot gif>
I’ll throw in the Morgan Freeman “He’s right you know” meme.
Karting is a sensible choice, but I think hillclimb with some sort of spec-ish car could be interesting. In the way of like “here is your choice of 2 or 3 very close to identical chassis, whatever color you wish, you can pick this cc engine with this horsepower/torque maximum, but do try to make it from a company in your country or at least generally the same continent/region.”
A field of identical cars no car assigned to any one and the drivers have to run to the cars like Lemans.
I would have assumed the current Frontier was going to run that long anyway, although some of the switchgear is “older” Nissan that I have to think the Frontier will be the last Nissan using.
Just run sports cars down the bobsled course. You know, reduce, re-use, reinvigorate.
Or, we could add in Monster Jam. For no other reason than to hear other countries renditions of “SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! COME SEE GRAVEDIGGER DO A FLIP!”
While the bobsledders are also going down the course. To keep it interesting.
It’s not really a car, but jockeys racing on Boston Dynamics dog-bots around an obstacle course could be a lot of fun.
I’m so here for this!
Icecross biathlon with tactical Helix, and two Tacomas for America and Canada.
Electric karting where pit crews are assigned randomly to drivers and switched between races, real time telemetry streamed live and everything tested to make sure it’s all within 1% or so before and after every race.
The Olympics has become a joke. It should go back to the days where it was mostly amateur athletes and not such a greed fest. Any form a motorsports is a stupid idea. What the next time it’s in China they will pay some American racer an obscene amount of money to become Chinese and compete for them? They would prolly go as far as resurrecting The Intimidator with science to win.
I don’t want motorsport in the Olympics, but I think it should be a chance for some truly unhinged combinations. They have an event that combines skiing and shooting, so why not combine driving with other skills? I want a driving event that includes a pit crew, then the pit crews have to compete in curling while the drivers fence.
Maybe a bobsled in there, too, for good measure.
how about this: drivers run a gravel road to the top of the hill, pit crews replace wheels with ice skates, then driver takes it down the bobsled track. I would watch this, but I’ve also watched a 45 minute long split snowboard race where a bunch of 40 year-olds started at the bottom on split boards to get up ( some ate granola bars on the way up) then snowboard down to the start/finish line.
what the what now?
It should actually say drivers drive a road to the top, not run with their feet. my bad
Haha, the old Top Gear did this years ago. They each got a AWD SUV of their choosing and had to hoon around a snow course, stopping at certain spots to shoot. 10/10 would watch, this might even make the Olympics interesting.
That is a much better biathlon than skiing provides, that’s for sure.
There’s already drivers flipping their lids and throwing fists at a race.
Boom! There’s your summer biathalon. Passin’ an’ punchin’.
I am a car guy, but I have no desire to see motorsports in the Olympics.
Synchronized kart drifting. Set to music.
ya.
with judges (so not really a sport).
“nailed the landing! oh! a disappointing 3 from the kazakhstan judge. now back to jim in the studio”
Ah, this old chestnut: drifting isn’t a sport because it’s judged. Just like figure skating, diving and boxing. Not sports.
I’ve judged fencing and drifting, and they are both as objective/subjective. If one is a sport so is the other.
Full disclosure: I was a competitive drifter for three years and I find it really boring to watch.
I just finished a morning dump. No butt-holding needed here.
Didn’t the Olympics get some kind of video games added to the competition? That seems a little flaky to me, but I’m all on-board if they added rally. It’s a very cross-borders sport that I think could be fun to watch.
Olympic motorsport ideas:
1. The car must be manufactured entirely within the participating country. All components. It can all be custom built, but only one configuration, and it has to be used in this configuration for the entire event.
2. The event is a decathlon. Drag racing. Hill climb. Rallycross. Tractor pull. Fuel economy. Top speed over a measured mile. Mud bog. Road course. Burnouts for distance. Final event: demolition derby. All with the same car. All events are scored equally except fuel economy, which gets triple points, just to mess with the teams that go all out on power.
3. ???
Edit to add: the entire team must ride in the vehicle from event to event. It can be a single seater, but then the driver is the only person who can touch the car for the entire event. Fuel, change tires, everything. So you can have a whole pit crew, but the vehicle has to have seats for all of them.
I’d watch this, and I don’t watch racing.
I would watch the crap outta this.
I would add to this a style rating section where they invite Xhibit or one of the other lads from Pimp My Ride to give a score out of 10.
I’m not entirely opposed to having a subjective category, but instead of a style competition, how about the each team gets to vote which team (other than themselves) most creatively interpreted the rules?
3. PROFIT!
you sir are a mad genius.
Each team gets a vehicle from each discipline (open wheel, stock car, dragster, rally cross, moto GP, and winged sprint car) but they can’t use the car on the course it was designed for. Top fuel dragster going around Laguna Seca? Stock car on 1/4 mile dirt oval?
Ensure a U.S. gold metal and go with a demolition derby. For extra American-ness, require all entrants be USDM models from 1973-1984.
This is hilarious.
Regular open field or figure 8?
Figure 8 WITH boats and trailers in tow!
Both, but figure 8 are trains.
I just posted that I was not in favor of motorsports in the Olympics, but I clearly was not thinking about it hard enough. Raise Hell, and Praise Dale!
Better yet, the Olympics could be the place to compete for all the 60s Imperials that have been banned from county fair demo derbies for decades.
Naturally it needs to be F1/NASCAR pitstop competitions
IROC, but all the cars are Dacia Dusters.
If it can’t be measured with a ruler, scale, or a stopwatch, requires more than one person, or a complicated machine, it should not be an Olympic sport.
This applies to team sports or anything that needs a judge like ice dancing, half-pipe snowboarding, rhythmic or most any other type of gymnastics.
So says this grumpy old man.
Well, bobsled is a team sport, both in terms of actual participants and designers/builders of the vehicle…
Whew, that means the longest penis competition is still in.
In general I’m with you when it comes to measurable sports (time, distance, or otherwise unambiguous scoring). Any sports where someone else has to tell you how you did (e.g., gymnastics, figure skating, diving) are really fun spectacles to watch, but it gets hard to get into the competition when the scoring is so subjective.
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to draw a hard line there, though, because they’re still so much fun to watch. I couldn’t imagine the Olympics without gymnastics, figure skating, or diving. If I were the IOC chairman,
I’d be reading this website from my Scrooge McDuck style pile of cash given to me in bribesI’d be judicious about adding new “watch me do this cool trick” style events, but some are such iconic parts of the Games that they just wouldn’t feel right without them.I never really though about team sports, but now that you mention it, I suppose they go against the original intent since the earliest events were all individual competitions. On the other hand, I was a little kid when the US fielded the “Dream Team”, and that was so much fun to watch that I’d hate to eliminate such an event from the games (Not to mention, I hear the 1980 “Miracle on ice” was pretty cool as well).