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First Toyota unintended acceleration case headed for trial

Toyota is going to be back in the spotlight, as the first of its unintended acceleration lawsuits is headed for trial. This case covers a Los Angeles sushi shop owner, Noriko Uno. According to the what the family told The Detroit News, Uno only put about 10,000 miles on her 2006 Toyota Camry in four years. Uno was apparently afraid of high speeds, avoiding the freeway and taking a route home along LA's surface streets to avoid them.
On August 28, 2009, Uno's Camry suddenly accelerated to 100 miles per hour, eventually striking a telephone poll and a tree and killing her. The family contends that Uno attempted to step on the brakes and pull the emergency brake, neither of which brought her speed under control, while Toyota maintains that improperly installed floormats and driver error have been behind the majority of the 80 cases expected to be heard in court.
In Uno's case, The Detroit News is expecting the trial to focus on the lack of an override if the gas and brake pedals were pressed at the same time. Brake overrides were installed on Toyota's European fleet. The Uno family attorney will need to prove to the jury that it wasn't driver error that killed Noriko Uno.

Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race Scion FR-S [w/video]

Toyota has been hosting its Pro/Celebrity race at the Toyota Grand Prix on Long Beach since 1977. The charity event, which has raised millions of dollars over the years, traditionally pits Hollywood celebrities against professional athletes (including race car drivers) on the full Grand Prix course in modified street vehicles. The short, sprint-style race is popular with the crowds as the amateur drivers race uninhibited - the result is an action-packed race with plenty of excitement and automotive... er... carnage.
Over the decades, the drivers have raced a variety of Toyota products including last year's front-wheel-drive Scion tC. But this year, Toyota announced at the Chicago Auto Show that the new rear-wheel-drive Scion FR-S would be stepping up to the plate. The good news only became better when Toyota Motorsports invited us out to Southern California's Willow Springs Raceway (the same circuit where the drivers train and practice) to be one of the first behind the wheel.
Driving Notes:

Race Recap: 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans defines 'endurance'

Commenting on the rush of events that rocked beginning and end of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Paul Truswell of Radio Le Mans said "the race is about the ability to endure, not just the ability of drivers to do what they do for a long time." The entire race machine, all the way down to the pit boards and radios, has to survive the stress and abuse of the entire day. This was the race to prove those words.
There were two Toyotas, two Porsches and three Audis, five of the seven led the race at some point, six of the seven ran in the top three. Toyota will be hugely disappointed that it didn't win when its car and drivers were so, so strong, but they gave Audi the kind of scare we haven't seen since the best of Peugeot's days, and Toyota did a better job of it even in the loss. Porsche blew away everyone's expectations, falling 3.5 hours short of a fairy tale ending that would have made Disney cry.
But Le Mans doesn't really do fairy tales. Well, not that fairy tale. Audi's Twitter handle during the event was #welcomechallenges. As usual, Le Mans answered for the entire field.