But if you haven’t had the chance, we’ve snagged a few of our favorites for you here. Enjoy!

Gran Turismo 5

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves gameplay

Gran Turismo for PSP

Hustle Kings

Echochrono

You may have even seen me on ESPN2 or the Speed Channel, or seen my work as a stunt driver in the Bourne Ultimatum, Dukes of Hazzard, or The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

Hot on the heels of my 2nd place finish at the Formula DRIFT Pro Championship finals earlier this month and clinching the 2008 Formula Drift Championship, I’m gearing up to represent the US against the best drifters in the world at Red Bull Drifting World Championships on November 15-16. I’ll be competing with 31 of the world’s best drifters from 12 countries, down at the docks at the Port of Long Beach in sunny California, hoping to take home the top prize.

And I want one of you to come cheer me on! This is a challenge to all you Gran Turismo fans, and here’s all you have to do!

I am challenging all of you to post your best lap time in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, in the online race event “Tanner Foust Racing Competition.” You’ll have to bring your best driving skills and push the Nissan Fairlady Z (Japanese version of the 350Z – my drifting car of choice) around the London city track faster than anyone else. With Professional driving physics of course. You have from now until midnight on November 2 to put your skills to the test.

Second and 3rd place winners will get a cool prize package, but the 1st place winner, along with a guest, will get to come cheer me on in Long Beach at the Red Bull Drifting World Championships from the VIP section. While you’re there, I’ll also see what you’re made of when I take you on head-to-head in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (I’ve been a huge fan of the series for a long time, and use it to train and to learn tracks), and take you for a spin on some practice drift laps around the course.

Here are the official rules.

So, what are you waiting for?! Fire up your copy of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue! You’ve got 2 weeks to prove to everyone you’re the best racer in the US!

See you in Long Beach.

-Tanner F

New Vehicles
All three vehicles and manufacturers have special ties to Gran Turismo developer Polyphony Digital. They will be added to their respective Dealership areas in GT5 Prologue.

GT by Citreon – The “GT by Citroen” concept car is the result of a groundbreaking collaboration between French automaker Citroen and Polyphony Digital. The formal debut of the vehicle took place yesterday at the Paris Motor Show, coinciding with the release of today’s update to the game. A video of the “GT by Citroen” can be viewed in HD within Gran Turismo TV.

Check out the screenshots below and for photos, follow this link.

The two other new cars are the Ferrari California and the Lotus Evora. They are a lot of fun to drive. For a look at these sexy vehicles, check out the images below.

The GT by Citroen is available for 1 Million credits; the Ferrari California will go for 300,000 credits the Lotus Evora for 100,000. Piece of cake, right?!?

GamePlay Enhancements
We’ve also added some great new gameplay enhancements to continue to improve the racing experience in GT5 Prologue. This includes changes to the penalty system; specifically, during Time Trial events, speed penalties have been removed, and instead incurring such a penalty now invalidates the lap time for that particular lap. Race events are also being updated, with tweaked difficulty levels and increased earnings for winning a top spot. Additionally, improved responsiveness when using the wireless controller, and improved sound volume balance for sound effects and music for a better racing experience. Drift Trial races have also been changed to feature a rolling start.

Disclaimer Note Here: Rankings, arcade time trial times, drift trial records, as well as vehicle-specific quick tune settings and custom key layouts will all be reset with the new update. Replay data created before the second update will no longer be viewable after this update. To confirm the version you have before updating the game, check the in-game manual.

That’s it for now, folks. I’ll see you on the track….

On Friday, August 1st, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue owners will receive a significant update that will take their racing and automotive experience to a new level.

The heart of this update is a new line-up of exciting automotive programming for “Gran Turismo TV”, our in-game automotive media channel. Gearheads will enjoy a host of new free and pay-per-view programming, including “Top Gear“, UK’s premier car entertainment program, and Japan’s “Best Motoring” video magazine, dedicated to the pursuit of the pleasure of driving.

Whether you’re in the mood to tour Ferrari’s factory in Italy with Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi, or to be insulted by Jeremy Clarkson talking trash about your favorite cars, or even sitting down to watch some mad Japanese race drivers play ‘car soccer’, there is a variety of choices for all types of car fans. Gran Turismo TV is housed within Gran Turismo 5 Prologue so access and videos is all in-game!

A few other notes about Gran Turismo TV for you to keep in mind:

• For the first two weeks only, we are providing all pay-per-view content for at a discounted price of $.99! It’s a good way to get a taste Gran Turismo TV. The HD content we shoot for our exclusive stuff looks pretty amazing. Following the initial two-week period, content will start at $1.99. So start downloading away!
• Be sure to check the full content list for a full content list, as we will be adding new programs on a regular basis.
• Gran Turismo TV will also include new features that allow viewers to fast forward, rewind, and move between chapters when viewing video content.
• Viewers can download up to 8 episodes simultaneously and pause individual downloads.

Personally, I would like to find some American content to beef-up the roster. What do you think? We welcome any suggestions you may have.

In addition, other gameplay enhancements come with this update, like fixes in penalty judgments, more tire choices for Time Trial and improved physics during collisions between cars during online races (YES! We’ve been carefully monitoring players behaviors online and all your comments on the forums.)

Stay tuned for more updates on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in the future. See you online!

If you can’t wait to jump into the “challenging and visually impressive achievement” (GameZone) that is Gran Turismo 5 Prologue – your wait is over. The GT5 Prologue Blu-ray disc has just hit store shelves, and in just a few hours – midnight Eastern, 9pm Pacific – GT5 Prologue will be available for download on the newly-redesigned PLAYSTATION Store at a price of $39.99. With 70 cars, drift mode, interior dash view, and online racing with up to 16 players, it’s a must-have racing game for your PS3 library. According to IGN, “you won’t be able to put the controller down.”

So which controller will help get you the best times in GT5 Prologue? In case you missed it, Producer Taku Imasaki and Associate Producer Christian Hinojosa-Miranda conducted a live chat on the PlayStation.com forums on Monday. In it, they shared their controller picks, compared GT5 Prologue vs Gran Turismo HD Concept, and what you can expect even after GT5 Prologue’s release. Check out the full transcript here.

For continuing updates on GT5 Prologue, you’ll wanna bookmark http://www.us.playstation.com/granturismo/. See you online!

From that point on, Roadhouse Blues secured its place in the “driving song” library, making its way into an unimaginable number of rare mixtapes and soundtracks.

With Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, we wanted to bring back the idea of the rare mixtape, a collection of songs that you’d be proud to own and play (and play and play and play) over and over again, a collection of classics.

So in went our resident music scout, Alex Hackford, deep into the crates looking for a dozen tracks that both compliment and enhance the Gran Turismo experience, and here’s our list:

• Weezer – “Automatic” (LA Riots remix)
• Mars Volta – “Goliath” (EL-P remix)
• Justice – “Let There Be Light”
• SebastiAn – “Dolami”
• Kavinsky – “Testarossa Autodrive” (SebastiAn remix)
• DJ Shadow – “LOVE LOVE”
• Does it Offend You, Yeah? – “With a Heavy Heart (I Regret to Inform You)”
• The Earaches – “Not the Kind of Man I Am”
• Thin Lizzy – “The Rocker” (Richard Evans Mix)
• The Klaxons – “Golden Skans”
• Friendly Fires – “On Board”
• Pride Tiger – “Let ‘Em Go”

Weezer’s “Automatic” is actually a unique remix composed by LA Riots exclusively for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue’s opening sequence.

So in a nutshell dear North America (as in these tracks are exclusive just for you), this is our mix-tape, a little something-something to enjoy as you corkscrew down the Eiger, barrel through the Daytona oval, drift through Suzuka Short or any other track of your choice.

Beyond this apex, you can also find all the original Japanese music as well as all the choice items from our European counterparts. So that’s about it for the music end, and outside of that, you can always flag me (or Taku or Alex) down and ask to see our iPods.

Hmm, let’s think about it for a second, cars and games, I thought I had died and gone to Heaven! Of course, I was stoked to be involved in the project and especially since the game was Gran Turismo. GT is my all time favorite racing game “simulator”, so much so that I had two custom full size driving cabinets built, so I could get the full on race experience. I was really excited to get over to Japan, capture the vibe of PDI and especially meet Kazunori Yamauchi, the creator of GT. I had heard that he was a huge car fanatic and that we would get to film his collection.

Well after four months of filming and editing, the HD video documentary is finally complete. I believe that we were able to capture the passion, the ambition and the dedication of man who has revolutionized both the gaming and auto industry. Thus the documentary is aptly named “Beyond the Apex.” I do not want to give too much away but if you thought you knew what goes into creating a Gran Turismo game, think again. Check out the teaser trailer above, it’s a little sampler of the goodness that awaits you exclusively on the GT5 Prologue Blu-ray disc.

Enjoy the ride!

Amongst the thousands of questions asked, let’s tackle a few to start: first, this is indeed the Scuderia Ferrari F2007; second, that is the actual Ferrari red as sanctioned by the Ferrari team; and last but not least, the Ferrari F2007 will be available at all Gran Turismo Ferrari dealerships for 2 million game credits.

With slick graphics, a 2.4 liter 90-degree V8 engine and the amazing physics of a F1 vehicle, the Ferrari F2007 is truly a beauty. Driving it is an adrenaline-pumping, hair-standing, goose-bumping experience… I hope everyone gets to experience this “God Mode within Gran Turismo”. Over the last couple weeks we’ve been driving this car in our offices every single day, with the volume cranked up… there is nothing more soothing than the high-rev scream of the Scuderia speeding down the Fuji straight…

More to come on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue soon. In the meantime, check out these new screen shots.

I’m blogging today with some awesome news! Today SCEA released more information about the North American version of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, scheduled for launch on PS3 in April. These new details include the full vehicle roster, the track list and some cool additional features. You can read all the nitty-gritty details in the press release, but here is a brief summary and some new screens shots. Enjoy!

Summary of differences between Japanese version and the American version:

• A whopping 30+ additional vehicles (compared to the Japanese version), including tuner cars from Amuse, Mine’s, etc.
• Another track to race on: an all-time favorite in the series – frantic and chaotic High Speed Ring!
• In Drift Mode, measure your drifting technique based on driving line, angle and speed within scoring zones on the course
• With the Quick Tune feature, adjust your vehicle’s settings including power, weight, tires and suspension
• All new set of online and offline race events and time trials to jump into, win, and unlock cars/features
• With Logitech’s new Driving Force GT racing wheel, you can adjust brake bias, traction and damper settings on-the-fly like they do in real-life with Formula One and rally cars. GT5 Prologue will support DualShock 3, too!

There will be much more info coming on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue soon, but in the meantime, enjoy these crisp, new screenshots!