• Wimmer Transportation Services sponsoring Nemechek: Wimmer Transportation Services has joined the #66 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race team as an associate sponsor for the Sprint Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway on September 14, 2014. Veteran driver, Joe Nemechek will be driving as the #66 team begins the final 10 races of the season. Wimmer Transportation Services, founded in 1991 by Warren Wimmer as a Chicago area cartage company. Wimmer operates a fleet of late model equipment, both tractors and straight trucks.(Identity Ventures Racing)(9-11-2014)

mcdonnell douglas av-8b harrier II+

mcdonnell douglas av-8b harrier II+, a photo by Matt Ottosen on Flickr.

Love the look of this Harrier. Semper Fi!

San Francisco (/ˌsæn frənˈsɪskoʊ/), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.6 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland.^[10]The only consolidated city-county in California,^[11] it encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km²)^[12] on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,179 people per square mile (6,632 people per km²). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated large city in the United States after New York City.^[13] San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 13th most populous city in the United States, with a population of 805,235 as of the 2010 Census. The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area has a population of 4,335,391.^[14]

San Francisco (literally, "Saint Francis") was founded on June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for St. Francis of Assisi a few miles away.^[15] The California Gold Rush of 1849 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000,^[16] and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire,^[17] San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater.^[18] After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.

Today, San Francisco is one of the top tourist destinations in the world,^[19] ranking 35th out of the 100 most visited cities worldwide,^[20] and is renowned for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, and its Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home to more than 30 international financial institutions,^[21] helping to make San Francisco rank 18th in the world's top producing cities, 8th in the United States, and 12th place in the top twenty global financial centers.^[22]

V-22 Osprey

The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey is an American multi-mission, military, tiltrotor aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), and short takeoff and landing (STOL) capability. It is designed to combine the functionality of a conventional helicopter with the long-range, high-speed cruise performance of aturboprop aircraft.

The V-22 originated from the United States Department of Defense Joint-service Vertical take-off/landing Experimental (JVX) aircraft program started in 1981. The team of Bell Helicopter and Boeing Helicopters was awarded a development contract in 1983 for the tiltrotor aircraft. The Bell Boeing team jointly produce the aircraft.^[4] The V-22 first flew in 1989, and began flight testing and design alterations; the complexity and difficulties of being the first tiltrotor intended for military service in the world led to many years of development.

The United States Marine Corps began crew training for the Osprey in 2000, and fielded it in 2007; it is supplementing and will eventually replace their CH-46 Sea Knights. The Osprey's other operator, the U.S. Air Force, fielded their version of the tiltrotor in 2009. Since entering service with the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force, the Osprey has been deployed in both combat and rescue operations over Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

Montreal is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal,the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the city is located, or Mont Réal as it was spelled in Middle French, (Mont Royal in present French).

As of February 2011, Statistics Canada identifies Montreal's Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) (land area 4,259 square kilometres (1,644 sq mi)) as Canada's second most populous with an estimated metropolitan area population of 3,859,318, and a population of 1,934,082 in the "agglomeration" of Montreal, which includes all of the municipalities on the island of Montreal. The city of Montreal proper had a population of 1,620,693 (as of 2006 census).

French is the city's official language and is also the language spoken at home by 59.9% of the population, followed by English at 19.4% (as of 2006 census). In the larger Montreal Census Metropolitan Area, 67.9% of the population speak French at home, compared to 16.5% who speak English. More than half of the population reports being able to speak both English and French. Montreal is the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.

Montreal is consistently rated as one of the world's most livable cities, was called "Canada's Cultural Capital" by Monocle Magazine and recently was named a UNESCO City of Design. Though historically the commercial capital of Canada, it was surpassed in population, as well as economic strength, by Toronto after 1976. Today it continues as an important centre of commerce, aerospace, finance, pharmaceuticals, technology, design,culture, tourism, film and world affairs.

In 2010, Montreal was named a hub city, ranked 34th globally out of 289 cities for innovation across multiple sectors of the urban economy, in the Innovation Cities Index by 2thinknow. Montreal was the next Canadian city in the annual index behind nexus city Toronto in 12th place and ahead of fellow hub cities Calgary, Quebec City, Vancouver and Edmonton. In 2009, Montreal was named North America's number one host city for international association events, according to the 2009 preliminary rankings of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA).

Dover International Speedway became the pioneer of NASCAR’s new inclement-weather procedures for Sprint Cup qualifying on Saturday. The qualifying for Sunday’s FedEx 400 was washed out, meaning the starting order is determined by the speeds in Friday’s practice session at the Monster Mile.

As such, perennial Monster-vanquisher Jimmie Johnson will start on the pole for Sunday’s race. Alongside him will be A.J. Allmendinger, who was edged out by six-thousandth of a mile-per-hour – a length of time that defies any comprehensible comparison.

Previously, the starting order would have been determined by the points standings. Under the new system, teams have more control over their own destiny, as they can alter their practice plans to account for the possibility of a rainout if the weather forecast is iffy.

“The new system definitely requires some thinking before hand and playing close attention to the weather,” Johnson said. “We elected to start in race trim yesterday. When we saw that speed and the threat of weather, at that point we switched into qualifying trim, and we worked really hard to try to outrun that lap [Allmendinger] ran. It’s a challenging routine.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start third, followed by Kasey Kahne and Joey Logano. Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick complete the top-10.

The "FedEx 400 benefiting Autism Speaks" will get underway with the green flag on May 15 at 1 p.m. at the Monster Mile.

Click here for the complete starting lineup for tomorrow's race.

Daytona 500

The Daytona 500 is a 500 miles (804.7 km)-long NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race held annually at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is one of four restrictor plate races on the Cup schedule. Jamie McMurray is the defending champion of the race.
The Daytona 500 is regarded as the most important and prestigious race on the NASCAR calendar, carrying by far the largest purse. Championship points awarded are equal to that of any other Sprint Cup race. It is also the series' first race of the year; this phenomenon is virtually unique in sports, which tend to have championships or other major events at the end of the season rather than the start. Since 1995, U.S. television ratings for the Daytona 500 have been the highest for any auto race of the year, surpassing the traditional leader, the Indianapolis 500 which in turn greatly surpasses the Daytona 500 in in-track attendance and international viewing. The 2006 Daytona 500 attracted the sixth largest average live global TV audience of any sporting event that year with 20 million viewers.
The event serves as the final event of Speedweeks and is sometimes referred to as "The Great American Race" or the "Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing." It is held the second or third Sunday in February, and since 1971, has been loosely associated with Presidents Day weekend.
The winner of the Daytona 500 is presented with the Harley J. Earl Trophy in Victory Lane, and the winning car is displayed, in race-winning condition, for one year at Daytona 500 Experience, a museum and gallery adjacent to Daytona International Speedway.