You could be Danica Patrick’s backseat driver

by Brenda Yun on

AirTran Airways is teaming up with Danica Patrick and the Indy Racing Experience to give seven lucky winners and their guests the ride of their lives on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. To complete the journey, winners will also receive two roundtrip flights on AirTran Airways, a $100 Hertz certificate, lunch and one night of hotel accommodations to prepare for the big day on Friday, October 2.

All you have to do is log onto http://www.airtran.com/danica before September 1, 2009 and register using their AirTran Airways A+ Rewards frequent flyer number. Winners will be chosen on September 8. For consumers that are not already A+ Rewards members, registration is free. Participants must be 18 years of age or older to be eligible.


If you don’t know who Danica Patrick is, then I don’t think you’ll be that interested in this silly little contest. I imagine most entrants will be of the male variety, and would love the opportunity to pull on Danica’s throttle — or be her backseat driver for a day.

Good luck — and if you win, tell Danica that Gadling sent you!

French “Black Saturday” worst in history

by Scott Carmichael on

Black Saturday is the name given to the the Saturday in France that marks the busiest summer traffic day of the year. Despite history, millions of French drivers pick the last Saturday in July to start their vacation, and head south.

In addition to departing vacationers, the weekend is also the switchover for the French, when half the country returns home, while the other half head out on their own vacation.

This year was the worst ever – the French roads were clogged with just under 550 miles of traffic jams. This means that all major highways from the north of France to the south were one big traffic jam. This isn’t your average traffic jam either – there is no slow moving traffic here, just a complete standstill for hours at a time.

The main access roads into (and through) Paris were filled with 80 miles of traffic jams, and the wait for many of the major European tunnels was over 7 hours.

Combine this with weather in the 90’s, and you’ve got yourself one pretty ugly situation. It comes as no surprise that most drivers simply turn off their vehicle and step out of the car to socialize with others in an attempt to make the best of the bad situation.

SkyMall Monday: Leather Driving Gloves

by Mike Barish on

I love a good road trip. There’s nothing better than leaving the SkyMall Monday headquarters and exploring this great country of ours. But the rigors of a long car ride can often be too much for a man to handle. I’m not talking about my legs getting stiff or all the fast food I eat at rest stops. No, it’s the blisters. When I drive, it’s a white knuckle adventure and it wears out my silky smooth, heavily-moisturized skin. I’ve tried steering with my knees, my mouth and my mind, but nothing seems to provide the control and and stability that highway patrolman demand that I possess. What’s a dainty-handed man to do? Rather than loosen my grip or remove the sandpaper steering wheel cover, I’ve decided to learn a lesson from the past. You see, when automobiles first came on the scene, there was romance and style. Drivers were debonair and handsomely attired. They protected their eyes with goggles, necks with scarves and hands with gloves. Because you can’t just grip the wheel, shift the gears and text your mistress with unprotected hands. You need to be safe. You need a coating that only a dead animal hide can give you. You need SkyMall’s Leather Driving Gloves.

Why do you need driving gloves? Well, if you’re like me, even passive activities make you sweat like a pig. Simply getting out of bed in the morning causes me to glisten like a glazed donut. I can’t have the steering wheel slipping out of my hand while on another one of my wacky adventures in the SkyMall Monday Mobile. And speaking of donuts, who wants that mess all over their fingers while driving? Think I’m not fit to operate a motor vehicle or a Gadling post? Well, SkyMall disagrees:

Buttery soft… thin enough to tune the radio. So comfortable they feel like a second skin. Ventilation notches keep your palms dry, even in a tricky hairpin turn.

Finally, a glove that is thin enough to give me that precision radio control that I need. And everyone knows that 88% of palm sweat incidents occur during turns. It’s nice to see a glove that addresses that scourge of the road.

Look, you can drive naked if you want, but when your palms sweat and you crash your car into a tree, you’ll be embarrassed when the police have to use the jaws of life to cut your naked body out of your car. As for me, I’d rather have put on a pair of Leather Driving Gloves and arrive safely at my nudist colony weekend.

Drive safe, SkyMall Maniacs!

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

Five ways to get to the airport

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Your bags are sitting in the hallway, and you’re ready to go to the airport. How to get there involves a tradeoff between cost and hassle. A sacrifice is always necessary, and it’s significant: you’ll have to give up something important. But, this is the nature of travel, so the best you can do is understand the good and bad associated with each.

1. Drive
Take yourself to the airport, and you don’t have to rely on anyone else’s schedule. You own your time. But, you may have to deal with traffic, and parking can get expensive. Choose a long-term parking lot to trade convenience for savings.

2. Taxi
This is more an urban option. It’s cheaper than a town car but can still become costly, especially with tolls and tip. If it’s early in the morning or raining, you might have trouble finding a cab.

3. Public transportation
Public transportation is generally the cheapest alternative, but leave lots of time (especially if you live in the suburbs); it can take hours. How much is your time worth?

4. Town car/limo
You’ll pay to play with a town car or limousine, which can be the most expensive (unless you drive to an airport that charges a small fortune for parking … and you’re taking a long trip). But, your car should arrive early and be ready to wait for you (no honking or phone calls until you’re a little late), and it will be clean and comfortable.

5. Find a friend
Convince someone to drive you, and you save a fortune and win some convenience. Do this too often, though, and your friends will hate you.

On the road with the Lincoln MKS

by Grant Martin on

When Ford contacted us about taking Lincoln’s new MKS out for a test drive, I thought that they had the wrong website. Autoblog, our sister site, takes care of all things automotive, and they would certainly be better equipped to handle a test drive. And in addition to being an airplane person, well, I’m not a very good driver.

But they made a good point: everyone on Autoblog has seen the MKS a dozen times and travelers go on road trips too. The content is just as valid. Further, since I was driving across the state of Michigan several times for Easter weekend I had ample time to test the vehicle out. So I agreed to take a look. But I made no promises about editorial content.

For those (myself included) among us that are not in the vehicle testing circles, I first have to comment on the kick of getting a test vehicle delivered. A third party company in the greater Detroit area handles the entire transaction, calling you before delivery and dropping off the vehicle wherever you want. They came to my office one sunny morning with a Mercury chase car and a pleasant woman tossed me a set of keys, asked me to sign a form and disappeared within five minutes. I was left with a bright red MKS for the weekend to do with as I pleased. Road tripping across Michigan over several days seemed like a good opportunity to acquaint myself.

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As luxury vehicles go, the MKS has all of the amenities that one comes to expect: a smooth, quiet ride, powerful V6 engine, heated and cooled comfortable, leather seats, wood trim, push-button starting and embedded navigation. Where I was surprised was in the features above and beyond.

Microsoft Sync is installed in the vehicle, and navigating though the touch screen AV system I was easily able to link up my iPhone via it’s Bluetooth link. Thus, for the duration of the trip when someone called the phone in my pocket the music automatically turned down and the call when through the speakers. Similarly, if I wanted to make a call I just pressed the talk button on the steering wheel and annunciated “DIAL” etc etc. Audio quality was decent, and I only lost one caller who happened to be inside of the noisy Detroit Metro Airport.

In fact, much of the interior control was handled from the steering wheel, including adjustment and selection of the MP3 audio system that I was constantly grazing about. It’s a nice feature that many manufacturers overlook.

Though hardly necessary, there is also a backup camera and very sensitive parking system that automatically beeps with increasing intensity as you approach a stationary object. This makes parallel parking a breeze, though it’s strange getting used to looking down instead of behind you when backing up.

Part of the MKS features I learned from the simple transition from my Audi TT – that is, the complete opposite in suspension and handling. Pulling onto I-94 on my maiden voyage to Buffalo Wild Wings, I got up to cruising speed and proceeded to start messing with the navigation. Only when my passenger pointed out that I was driving 95MPH did I realize that I was speeding – I had assumed my normal “comfort speed” as tuned to the TT on the expressway. That same vibration and feel was 20 MPH faster in the MKS.

Of the road trip? I enjoyed seamless navigation, an excellent ride and ultimate comfort as I drove from Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo to South Haven to Flint to Detroit in a head turning, modern car. My weekend couldn’t have been spent in a better piece of machinery. Oh and about the bad driver comment? I was lucky enough to get through the entire state without getting any speeding tickets or bumping into anything. My girlfriend? Not so lucky.