NASCAR's redesigned race cars receive rave reviews

Designed primarily to improve driver safety following the death of Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500, the car has been kicked to the curb, left in the rearview mirror and turned into scrap metal.

The redesigned replacements - at least so far - are a huge hit with drivers, owners, auto manufacturers and fans.

The new cars, dubbed ''Generation 6,'' look considerably closer to the ones sold on showroom floors. It's NASCAR's way of putting the ''stock'' back in stock-car racing and possibly making the cars stars once again.

''It matters because it's the image we portray,'' defending Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski said. ''I wear a fire suit with a helmet and a full seat around me. You can't see me. What you are seeing is this car going around the race track and the sponsors and the car construction, styling, etc. So that is what you see as a fan or as an ambassador of the sport. Absolutely it matters.''

Cars used to be as iconic as drivers in NASCAR.

In the mid-1950s, race cars were virtually indistinguishable from production vehicles. Sure, they had some rudimentary safety equipment and numbers on the doors, but they often still had license plates and working headlights.

Against other real production cars, the very first Chrysler 300 was dominant. That set the stage for the next five decades of racing.

Fireball Roberts and his No. 22 black and gold Pontiac Catalina were mainstays in Victory Lane in the early 60s. Richard Petty's blue Dodge Charger was a series staple.

The Charger became so important to Petty that NASCAR extended the car's eligibility through the 1977 season, an unprecedented move for the sanctioning body. And few have forgotten Bill Elliott's sleek Ford Thunderbird or Earnhardt's stylish Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS in the late 1980s.

''People want that kind of connection with the car they're driving,'' NASCAR team owner Chip Ganassi said.

NASCAR hasn't had that in years.

The CoT debuted in 2007 after extension research and development. The driver's seat moved more toward the center of the car, which was longer and wider.

The result was a boxy car that was indistinguishable from make to make; NASCAR needed just one template to check every car during inspections. Maybe more troubling was that it was considerably less racy than its predecessor.

Drivers hated it, fans ripped it and NASCAR officials dismissed the backlash while continuously pointing to the car's safety record.

''It was something that's never happened in history, where manufacturers were basically treated like mushrooms - kept in the dark and under a pile a crap by the organizing bodies,'' said Lee White, president and general manager of Toyota Racing Development. ''Now it's an opportunity for the manufacturers to become front and center.''

Indeed.

With Chevrolet leading the way, and fellow manufactures Ford and Toyota gladly following its lead, the auto giants demanded change. By some accounts, Chevy even threatened to leave NASCAR if the on-track cars didn't become more relevant.

NASCAR listened, and allowed the three manufacturers to develop unique versions of the Gen-6 car. That led to cars that closely resemble the Chevrolet SS, the Ford Fusion and the Toyota Camry.

Grills and body lines are similar. Silhouettes are within millimeters of their showroom counterparts.

''This is stock-car racing,'' said Mark Reuss, president of General Motors North America. ''Everything is supposed to be stock or at least as close as you can get to stock. NASCAR knew it. The manufacturers knew. The fans knew it. Everyone could feel things were off. We're trying to appeal to a whole new generation of people, and when the car's not relevant, it gets really hard because everyone starts aging. We did this as much for the sport as we did for the brand.''

Still, the ol' ''win on Sunday, sell on Monday'' mantra is what auto makers really would like to get back to.

''It's been a long time coming, and it's finally here,'' said NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick, who owns car dealerships across the country. ''I've never seen this much energy about the car. We have the drivers as stars, and we used to have the cars as stars. Now I think we've got them both again, and I think that's the neatest part of this deal.''

Feedback has been purely positive after two tests in January and through the first few days of Speedweeks.

Still, complete results won't really be known until the car makes its debut at superspeedways, short tracks and the all-important 1 1/2 mile ovals.

''The previous car was the ugliest car of all time,'' driver Jamie McMurray said. ''I thought it was horrible. I think this is the best looking car we've ever been in. ... It's cool that we have some brand identity. If you're a Chevy fan, you have something to pull for. Before, the cars just had different decals on them. They are actually different now, which is cool.''

And NASCAR isn't done making the race cars more closely mimic those on the streets.

The sanctioning body moved to ethanol-blended fuel in 2011 and then replaced carburetors with fuel-injection systems last year. Electronic power steering and glass dashboards could be next.

''It's our job to bring racing to fans in a format they can understand, that's relevant and not based on the past, but on the future,'' Reuss said.

2 Executives May Have Faked Deaths

The reporter in Mexico who described the purported death of two American executives with a crumbling business said they were likely not killed and he may have been "fed" the story.

Antonio Neri Johnston, a reporter for El Occidental newspaper in Guadalajara, Mexico, wrote a story on Feb. 11, describing that the bodies of Americans Michael Davies and Derald Johnston, identified as the CEO and CFO, respectively, of Southridge Enterprises in Dallas, had been discovered.

Johnston said a man who claimed to be a police officer in a remote village said two bodies were found in a river with documents showing their identities.

"The strange thing is, they called me, but also other colleagues," Johnston, who could not be reached for comment today, told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA.

But Johnston said neither local police nor American authorities have evidence of a crime where the bodies were found, nor that the men have been reported missing or even that they existed in the first place.

"We were fed a story, and many of us ran with it," Johnston told The Dallas Morning News.

The Securities and Exchange Commission terminated the registration of Southridge Enterprises Inc.in 2011, noting that there were approximately 134 stock "holders of record." ABC News was not successful in attempts to contact an attorney and law firm once associated with the company, Carrillo Huettel LLP, in San Diego, Calif.

According to one of its press releases on its website, Southridge Minerals announced in November 2012 that it "hired new legal representation" but did not specify which law firm.

Southridge Mineral states that it was in the "development and acquisition of gold and silver mines in Mexico," but Bandera Gold, a competing company, said Southridge claimed to have business in places in Mexico where none existed.

Starting in early 2012, Southridge began issuing press releases indicating that it had surface rights to Cinco Minas in Jalisco, Mexico, something that caught the attention of Bandera Gold, a gold exploration company in Alberta, Canada, that said it has ownership of the land.

Bandera Gold has been in a legal dispute with its former joint venture partner since 2008 over a $5.6 million agreement to invest in Cinco Minas.

"[Southridge] was claiming a comprehensive drill program and they were intercepting bonanza grades -- all of which when we were acutely aware the site was dormant. It has not had activity since late 2007," said Stephen Roehrig, Bandera's CEO.

Concerned that Bandera Gold's shareholders might be confused by the conflicting information, Roehrig said he hired an independent security team to monitor the site and found no evidence of mining activity.

Roehrig told ABC News Bandera sent "cease and desist" letters to the address Southridge registered with the SEC. Those letters returned "undeliverable."

Linda Coker, the tenant relations manager at the Dallas office building of Southridge and Southridge Minerals, told the Dallas Morning News that Southridge does not lease space in the building, though she said the company may have had a temporary or virtual office operation there.

"We made efforts to try and communicate with them," Roehrig told ABC News. "There's never been evidence that he at all exists. All attempts to communicate with him ended up as a dead end."

The SEC suspended trading in Southridge stock after the company issued a statement claiming that it had a joint partnership in Mexico with Kinross Gold Corp. of Canada. Kinross told the SEC there was no such deal.

Exclusive: Disney discovers unreleased Mickey Mouse sketch from 1938

More than 80 years after his creation, Mickey Mouse continues to surprise.

The Disney archives have released a newly discovered sketch from 1938, “Mickey’s Toothache,” part of an incomplete cartoon that was part of an effort to make Mickey a more complete character.

In “Mickey’s Toothache,” created in April 1938, artist Ferdinand Horvath has the newly adventurous Mickey experiencing something akin to a psychedelic nightmare. In the words of Disney Archives Director Becky Cline, Mickey has traveled to the dentist and fallen under the influence of too much laughing gas. The overdose sends Mickey into a “nightmarish world inhabited by living teeth, dental floss, a psychotic dentist’s chair and a vengeful pair of dental pliers," said Cline.

Mickey’s then-nemesis Pete also makes an appearance in the nightmare scenario. It culminates with Mickey being put on trial led, of course, by a judgmental wisdom tooth, who charges Mickey with tooth neglect.

The previously forgotten piece of artwork was discovered in the Walt Disney Archives, hiding out in a folder lost for more than 74 years. It was unearthed just a few months ago.

“Mickey’s Toothache” is just one of several unveilings being planned as part of this year’s D23 Disney Fanniversary Celebration, an event that began last year as a way to include members of Disney’s official fan club in some of the company’s milestone events. The Horvath image will be included in a 90-minute presentation showcasing some of this year’s other major Disney anniversaries in 10 different U.S. cities (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Newark, Orlando, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.).

“Mickey has been a superstar from almost the beginning. He was immediately popular,” Cline told Yahoo News. “By 1938, he was just about to step into a finished version of himself. He was boyish and impish. During this period of his growth he became larger than life in some ways.”

Cline says the artwork showcases the transformation of America's favorite mouse from popular fad to American icon. It's one that can be seen as well in released cartoons of Mickey engaging in various adventures in locales including the deepest jungles of Africa, or in the 1936 cartoon “Through the Mirror.”

“Mickey was kind of growing and stretching. He left the barnyard, and he started to become more adventurous,” Cline said.

Though most people think of Walt Disney himself in relation to his most-famous individual creation, Horvath was a significant part of the early Disney years. Born in 1891 Horvath spent time in a Russian concentration camp where he taught himself to draw before immigrating to America on Armistice Day 1921. He worked for the studio from 1934 through 1944, producing between 70 and 80 animated shorts along the way and working on the production of "Snow White."

Last year, we brought you the story of a newly discovered, 85-year-old Oswald the Rabbit sketch, “Harem Scarem.” Since then, Disney has pushed forward with efforts to bring Oswald, a Mickey prototype of sorts, back into the Disney fold.

So, will we ever see a complete version of “Mickey’s Toothache”?

“It’s possible,” Cline said. "The animation research library still goes back and refers to those older cartoons. ... Even though we’re still discovering some of this material for the first time in decades, they’re not lost.”

Looking for Greatness on Presidents Day

Presidents Day fact: Historians generally agree that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest U.S. president.

President Obama seems to agree, too. He announced his first run for president from the steps of the state house in Springfield, Ill., and laced it with references to No. 16. Asked during a "fireside hangout" on Google+ what people should read to really understand his political philosophy, Obama pointed first to his own book, then directed people to the writings of Lincoln.

"I have to tell you that where I draw inspiration from is the writings of Lincoln, and I'm assuming you're a Republican," he told a questioner. "This was our first Republican president. But the core philosophy that he espouses, this sense that we are this nation that is built on freedom and individual initiative and free enterprise but there are some things we do in common together," he said.

Obama caught some flak in December of 2011, during a "60 Minutes" interview, for comparing his own accomplishments to those of other presidents.

"I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president - with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln - just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history," Obama said.

It is surely too soon to say how great, or not, President Obama's presidency will be. But as he embarks on his second term, his legacy will be a topic of great debate and subject to political perspective.

John F. Kennedy told the presidential biographer David Donald that rating presidents was a tricky business.

"No one has a right to grade a president - even poor James Buchanan - who has not sat in his chair, examined the mail and information that came across his desk, and learned why he made his decisions," Donald wrote in his biography of Lincoln.

While "President's Day," which was enshrined as a Monday holiday with the " Uniform Holiday Bill" signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in 1968, is more closely pegged to Washington's Birthday, Richard Nixon appears to have started the tradition of referring to it as Presidents Day and honoring all the presidents, even though some surely deserve less commemoration than others. Good thing for him, too, because he's the only president to resign in the face of impeachment.

How a person views a president's legacy might have a lot to do with his or her political perspective. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln transcend those preferences; Washington helped create the country and Lincoln helped keep it intact and end the stain of slavery. But others - Woodrow Wilson, who is considered great - might be more well liked by a liberal than Ronald Reagan, who would surely be preferred by a conservative.

Somebody on Wikipedia took the time to compile surveys of scholars and the general public about who was the best president. Lincoln was rated highest the most. His predecessor, James Buchanan, is often cited as one of the worst because he allowed the Confederacy to fester. Another contender is Warren G. Harding, who followed Woodrow Wilson's international activism with a hands-off approach and a corrupt cabinet.

Newt Gingrich is a history professor and a politician and while his own presidential aspirations came up short in the Republican primary last year, he also has some bipartisan ideas about who were the best presidents: Washington or Lincoln, he said through a spokesman.

But he has often spoken up about the greatness of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest-serving president who grew the federal government more than any other. When Gingrich reached some heights of Washington power in 1995 as speaker of the House, the first Republican to hold the position in 40 years, he gave some cross-partisan love to FDR, the same president many Republicans now blame for bloating the federal government.

In a speech to the House of Representatives, he outlined the need for spending cuts to balance the budget, which he thought should exempt Social Security. But he said Washington should not be afraid of cuts elsewhere. And he invoked F.D.R. to make that point:

"But let me say about everything else, whether it is Medicare, or it is agricultural subsidies, or it is defense or anything that I think the greatest Democratic president of the 20th century, and in my judgment the greatest president of the 20th century, said it right. On March 4, 1933, he stood in braces as a man who had polio at a time when nobody who had that kind of disability could be anything in public life. He was president of the United States, and he stood in front of this Capitol on a rainy March day and he said, 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.'"

Elsewhere in that speech, Gingrich gave praise to Franklin Roosevelt for the style of his leadership, not his policies.

"The fact is that it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who gave hope to a nation that was in distress and could have slid into dictatorship. Every Republican has much to learn from studying what the Democrats did right," Gingrich told the House of Representatives in 1995.

Listen to Gingrich's 1995 speech here.

Gingrich's view of FDR's being the greatest 20 th century president has not changed in the intervening years. Asked during his presidential run who the fifth president n Mt. Rushmore should be, Gingrich said he'd "go for five and six: F.D.R. and Reagan."

Jets escort plane from where Obama is vacationing

Officials say two F-16 military jets have escorted a small plane away from a no-fly zone above where President Barack Obama is vacationing along Florida's Treasure Coast.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Mike Humphreys said the planes forced the Cessna 152 to land in Witham Field in Stuart around noon Saturday. Local authorities met the plane when it landed. No other details were released.

Federal Aviation Administration officials said they are investigating whether the Cessna entered the temporarily restricted flight area.

Obama is spending the weekend with some friends at the Floridian, a secluded yacht and golf club.

Ever Wonder: How Did Beyoncé Get Her Unusual First Name?

Say my name! It’s become a household term at this point—but have you ever wondered what was the inspiration behind Beyonce’s unique moniker?

No need to be mystified any longer. According to Bey’s own family, there’s actually a quite logical explanation. At Tuesday’s premiere of Beyonce’s biopic documentary, Life Is But A Dream, her maternal uncle Roland Beyincegave the scoop.

As you've probably already guessed by now, the name was a twist on Beyonce's mom's maiden name. “My sister Tina [Knowles] didn’t think we had enough boys in the family to keep the name going, so she gave Beyoncé our last name as the first name,” Uncle Roland explained.

Of course, it’s not an exact match, but we think "Beyoncé" has much more of a lilt to it than "Beyince"—don’t you?

The megastar singer—who is well-known for her privacy—opened up recently to talk show queen Oprah Winfrey regarding her new documentary, which airs on HBO Saturday night. In the revealing interview, she touches on many subjects, including a miscarriage she suffered prior to having daughter Blue Ivy last year; the firing of her father as her manager; and her marriage to rap mogul Jay-Z.

‘Daily Show’ and ‘Colbert Report’ take on ‘Harlem Shake’ (VIDEOS)

The "Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" have made their contributions to the ever-growing canon of "Harlem Shake" remix videos.

The meme began late last month when a group of what appear to be college students dressed in latex suits shot a goofy video of themselves dancing wildly in a cramped dorm room to "Harlem Shake" by Baauer, a Brooklyn-based electronic music producer. The video quickly went viral, amassing more than 5 million views on YouTube.

In early February, five Australian skateboarders—including one wearing what appears to be a motorcycle helmet—followed suit. Theirs went viral, too, racking up more than 7 million views and inspiring scores of imitators.

By Feb. 11, there were more than 12,000 “Harlem Shake” videos on YouTube, according to ABC, with everything from swim teams to startups joining in on the fun.

Which brings us to this: Jon Stewart, clad in a helmet and surrounded by the "Daily Show" staff, dancing to the bass-thumping track. In the "Daily Show" version, Stewart is ditched by the staff and ends up dancing in a cape alone.

Not to be outdone, Stephen Colbert led a "Harlem Shake" remix with members of the "Colbert Report" studio audience.

Watch both versions below.