With gasoline prices soaring higher, will Mario Kart Wii, which launched Tuesday, be the future of auto racing?

-

Will Wii be racing's future?

Date published: 5/3/2008

THIS WEEK, we try to pry the Wii Wheel out of our wee 4-year-old's hands, ponder the fate of suburbia (that means you, Fredericksburg-area readers) at the end of the automotive age, and ask for your badmouthing assistance in choosing a new cell phone and wireless carrier.

Answer: You, Dale Jr. and a monkey riding a motorcycle.

Question: What's the future of NASCAR when you'll no longer be able to afford to drive to the racetrack?

With gas prices on a never-ending climb up Mount Bankrupt, this could be the future of NASCAR:

You racing Dale Earnhardt Jr. in a Mario Kart Wii Tournament on the Internet.

Think about it.

It's interactive. How cool is that? Instead of sitting in the stands watching Dale, waiting for him to wreck, you're actually racing Dale, trying to make him wreck.

At the rate gas prices are increasing, it'd save you the cost of burning what could well soon be $7 a gallon driving to the racetrack.

It'd save Dale's sponsor the cost of burning gas driving around the racetrack.

Anyway, Nintendo's new Mario Kart game for Wii is almost cool enough to ease the pain you'll soon be feeling as you pedal a bike to work instead of revving that big, gas-guzzling SUV that now costs nearly $100 to fill up.

Since it launched Tuesday, I've had a hard time prying the Wii Wheel away from my two young sons to play it. Believe me, it's fun.

And every few weeks, Nintendo has already begun worldwide racing tournaments on the Mario Kart Channel, an online feature that allows players to compete in tournaments and exchange taunts and race data with friends.

Your best time is recorded and added to the worldwide rankings.

See ya there, Dale. Wouldn't wanna be ya.

We got trouble, trouble, trouble right here in suburbia

At the end of last month, BusinessWeek featured an interesting article titled "Good-bye, Cheap Oil. So Long, Suburbia?"

Date published: 5/3/2008