When I started watching the latest Ken Blocks’ Gymkhana—filmed from every angle with a billion GoPro cameras—I was thinking "oh, this is neat." By the middle of it I was "oh, wait, what? WHAT?" And at the end I was "what the hell did I just watch?"
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If you’re a fan of cars, racing, or stupid vehicular stunts you’ve probably seen Ken Block and his Gymkhana series of videos. Gymkhana Five saw Block tearing through the streets of San Francisco and the sixth installment in the YouTube video franchise is now available for our enjoyment. It’s cool, but I don’t think it’s nearly as cool as the last one was.
In Gymkhana Six, Block streaks through a course that is set up with red and white boundaries all around making it very tight and narrow. He flies around the course in his Ford Fiesta race car and slides around hitting tetherballs with the back of his car.
He also does doughnuts around some moving Need For Speed Lamborghinis and his trademark guys on Segway scooters. My favorite part is when he slips around corners at full speed and is able to get his car lined up to make it through narrow shipping containers with the doors open. Check out the video for yourself and see if you think it’s better than Gymkhana Five.
EA has announced that it has signed a deal with Ken Block in which he will become the Racing Advisor for the Need for Speed franchise. Block is an amazing race car driver who has participated in rally racing and won multiple X-Games medals. EA will also be sponsoring Block and his Ford Fiesta ST 2013 racing car.
The best news from this announcement isn’t that Block will be associated with Need for Speed, at least not for me. The best news is that EA will be working with Block on the release of Gymkhana Six. If you never seen a Gymkhana video and you’re a fan of cars or racing, you’re really missing out. So why not watch the last one now?..
EA says that the next installment in the Gymkhana franchise will be released in its entirety on November 11. EA promises that the new video raises the bar for what can be done behind the wheel of a car. That bar was already pretty high after Gymkhana 5, in my opinion. The next video the franchise will be available directly from the Need for Speed website and on the franchise’s YouTube channel.
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Microsoft posts record revenue of $21.5 billion, and $6.38 billion profit…
From somewhere atop a Finnish mountain, Stephen Elop is both bellowing and whispering…
It’s here! After nine months of waiting and a whopping 31 project updates…
Intel has been planning to make its Ireland base one of three global manufacturing sites for its 14nm chips…
What’s that? Not enough race car drivers on our CES 2013 stage? Great news! Resident automotive obsessive Tim will be talking to professional rally car driver and YouTube star Ken Block about all things fast.
Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!
Update: video embedded
Filed under: Transportation
It must be pretty cool to be Ken Block. The guy gets to drive cars for a living and is a world-class hoonster. In fact, “Ken Block” translates in the Latin to Hoonicus Maximus, or at least it should. If you’ve ever watched Block’s Gymkhana videos before, you will definitely want to see the latest that was released this week.
The latest video is Gymkhana Five, and this time out Block and his insanely fast Ford Fiesta (possibly the world’s only cool Fiesta) are up to some insane stunt driving in San Francisco. Block was able to get closed access to a bunch of the famous San Francisco city streets, including a suspension bridge, so he could drift and tear the place up.
It’s awesome to see him jump that Fiesta over some of the hilly streets in San Francisco. Be sure and watch the hood on that jump, it appears that the landing ripped the front end out of the car. I bet they needed a new car after that scene or at least had to stop for repairs. Apparently, the movie was pieced together from different scenes shot on different days, but it’s still incredibly awesome. I think my biggest car guy wish would be some hoon lessons from Block.
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