Wheels: Monday Motorsports: Ed Carpenter Qualifies for Indy 500 Pole Position

Geoff Miller/Reuters The 2013 Indianapolis 500’s first row: (left to right) Marco Andretti, Ed Carpenter (pole) and Carlos Munoz.Ed Carpenter, whose family owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, qualified for the pole position for the Indianapolis 500 on May 26. The top qualifying position was worth a $100,000 prize, but Carpenter says the boost for his team, which he owns,...

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Ford Plans to Shut Its 2 Plants in Australia

The U.S. automaker’s Australian unit will close its engine plant in Geelong and its vehicle assembly plant in Broadmeadows, both in the state of Victoria, with the loss of 1,200 jobs, Bob Graziano, chief executive of Ford Australia, said Thursday. Ford, which built 37,000 vehicles in Australia last year, has been in the country since 1925 and employs more than 3,000 people. But it has been battling sliding sales, high costs and an Australian dollar...

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Behind the Wheel | 2014 Subaru Forester: Subaru Forester: A Crossover Jostling to Fit in Showrooms Already Full

Not that Subaru is doing badly. Sales in the United States have increased in each of the last four years, setting records. But the Forester — last reworked in 2008 — has not been part of that growth, with sales shrinking some 10 percent in 2011 and stalling at that level last year. The Forester has, in part, been a casualty of the brawl in the compact sport utility market in recent years, with automakers landing blow and counterblow by improving...

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