Taking home the glory and fame this time around was Gregory Russell, who posted the best lap time in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue’s online race mode, pushing the Nissan 350Z around the London city track faster than anyone else in the United States. He finished with a lap time of a mere 1’00.711 seconds. Competition was tight, however, with the top times separated by a mere tenth of a second. These are the true, dedicated race fans right here.

As the grand prize winner, Gregory was flown from Maryland out to the Port of Long Beach to attend the Red Bull Drifting World Championship, where the skies were cloudy with smoke from the southern California fires as well as the smoke coming off the tires from 32 of the world’s top drift racers there to compete. Ultimately Tanner, the 2008 US Formula Drift Champion, went on to win 3rd place overall, out of 32 drivers including 17 past and present drifting champions from around the world.

Not only did Gregory get to cheer Tanner on from the VIP section, he also got VIP access to Tanner. On Saturday, during the pre-qualifying open practice session, Gregory rode shotgun in Tanner’s drift car, a Nissan 350Z, for two complete practice laps at full speed. And by full speed, I mean Tanner was hitting the first corner at 100 when he initiated his drift for the long first corner, hugging the wall and powering through all of the turns, leaving plumes of tire smoke in his wake.

On Saturday afternoon, Gregory also got a chance to go head to head with Tanner on board the PlayStation Experience Truck. After Tanner took on the local winners from the race competitions on the truck, Gregory and Tanner put the pedal to the metal as they raced BMW M3s around the demanding London city track course. Tanner ultimately won the race, but Gregory put up a good fight considering who he was going up against. Afterwards, Tanner presented the rest of Gregory’s prize, which included a GT hat, a signed copy of the GT5P (plus MotorStorm: Pacific Rift), and two cool limited edition Gran Turismo jackets (thermal and rain) from Nike. Read more about Gregory’s experience here on Gran Turismo forums.

There was only one grand prize winner, but coming in second place in the online contest was Brian Johnston from Georgia, a big fan of Gran Turismo. Brian is a college freshman studying engineering, and has been playing Gran Turismo since Gran Turismo 2 on the original PlayStation. Coming in at 3rd place was Kevin Bruner, a 45-year-old native of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Kevin is also an active member of the Gran Turismo forums, and has been a racing fan since childhood. Kevin owns and has finished all of the Gran Turismo titles to 100% completion with all gold licenses. Both Brian and Kevin will receive a copy of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue signed by Tanner Foust, a signed GT5P poster, and a Gran Turismo T-shirt and hat.

Honorable mentions in the event go to Brett Miller and Tim Bambu. Tim is from Florida and is an aspiring race car driver, attending and teaching at the International Motorsports Academy and competing in various kart series races in Florida. He also plans on majoring in Mechanical Engineering and will be involved in a special university program that builds a race car every year as part of a national competition.

You can catch them all racing online in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, but you’ll need some pretty good luck to actually catch up to them during the races, as they have proven themselves to be some of the fastest players in the US.

Prior to the SEMA show, all exhibitors are invited to submit their car for consideration by a select panel of distinguished judges, who pick the top car in each of five different categories, including “Best Domestic,” “Best European Import,” “Best Hot Rod,” “Best Japanese Import” and “Best Truck/SUV.” Judges consist of various respected automotive journalists, and judging for each category is based on the judges’ choice for cars that exhibit a strong balance of performance and style. After the five category winners are chosen, Yamauchi selects his favorite to receive the coveted “Best in Show” prize. This year, the winner of the “Best Japanese Import” went to JR Rocha with his custom 2007 Infiniti G37. The “Best Truck/SUV” honor was presented to John Wargo for his 1938 Chevy. The “Best European Import” award was given to Robert Gal this year for his Volkswagon Concept car. The “Best Domestic,” award was given to James Shipka for his 1967 Chevrolet Camero Rally Sport “Big Red.” The final category, “Best Hot Rod,” was awarded to Jason Lavigne for the Factory Five Racing 1933 Hot Rod.

To celebrate the best of the SEMA exhibitors, PlayStation hosted an awards ceremony last Thursday night at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. With drift and rally superstar Tanner Foust emceeing the ceremony, Yamauchi presented the Best in Show award to JR Rocha for his Infiniti G37. Yamauchi selected JR Rocha’s car for this prestigious honor because of the passion and dedication that went into making it. JR, and every other Gran Turismo fan, will be able to drive a virtual recreation of his G37 in a future installment of Gran Turismo. Following the ceremony, party guests were treated to a special live performance by hip hop superstar Ludacris, with rock legends Tommy Lee and Dave Navarro helping bring the set to an exciting close. Post-performance music was played by DJ Z-Trip. It was quite a show!!

That’s it for now. We’re already looking forward to discovering next year’s hottest car at SEMA 2009!

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

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!

This is heritage, this is Gran Turismo. This is our decade long devotion to excellence, as this week marks our 10 year anniversary of the Gran Turismo series in North America.

And as of April 30, Gran Turismo has shipped over 50 million games worldwide, complete with unrivaled physics, stunning graphics and a loyal fan base from every industry and lifestyle across the globe.

Many of you who have been fans of the series can fondly look back with us to the days of the first Gran Turismo on PSone, which in many ways revolutionized and redefined the racing category within video games. Licensed cars, realistic graphics, customization, replays were all pretty much unheard of, or unimagined, back then in racing games. Since then, Gran Turismo has grown and evolved, adding new features as the series progressed. It has also allowed millions the chance to test drive EVOs, STIs and GT-Rs, cars that were extremely rare in North America. Many also extended their passion from virtual to actual, actively seeking those rare imports, working on them and tuning them for track racing. The series also introduced Photo Mode, a simple and overlooked feature that is now a standard in any racing game, as well as B-spec mode, where you became the race team manager, commanding from the paddock.

Which leads us to the here and now with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue on the PLAYSTATION 3, a thorough racing experience with multiple views and features that will once again, change the way racing games are experienced. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue offers Gran Turismo-TV, automotive content from around the world, news feeds ticker off real-time events, and sixteen player games (both online and offline) that recreate the rush of actual track racing.

This is where our passions lie–in the cars, driving, and racing heritage. We’ve come a long way from the days of the first Gran Turismo, and we still have a ways to go to complete the vision.

Happy 10th Anniversary to everyone at Polyphony Digital and all the fans, both new and old, in our global Gran Turismo family.

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.