alright the moment we've all been waiting for it's finally time for the AutoSkunk season two finale to cap off the 2020 season.
since 2020 has been an extremely fucked up year, I've decided what better way to end 2020 than with a compilation of controversies that have happened in the auto and motorsport industries, that's right, I'm ending a fucked up year with a compilation of major fuck ups that have occurred in motorsports and the auto industry and the automotive community in general, I haven't come across very many controversies that have happened this year in fact I've only marked down seven, soo this will be a top seven, these are the top seven automotive controversies of 2020.

7: Funimation privatizing full length Initial D episodes on their Youtube channel.

now I know it's not auto industry or motorsports related, but it's definitely car community related.
did you know you could watch full length episodes of Funimation owned animes on their youtube channel for free?, yeah that's right and that includes full length episodes of Initial D from seasons one to four, I love watching that anime series, mainly to see if I can learn anything new from it, driving techniques I can use in racing games like Gran Turismo, learning something new about some of the cars in the series, even inspiration for roleplay based stories.
Initial D was one of my favorite shows to watch and greatest perk of it?, is you could watch it for free on youtube straight from their channel.
but now as of this year?, you can't watch on their channel anymore, for some reason, I'll never know for sure, but for some reason Funimation has privatized their videos, you can't click on any of their full length episodes without getting a message saying that it has been made private, and that just crushed me, Initial D was one of my escapes from reality where I could have me time to enjoy myself and just basically go off in my own little world, granted there are other things I like I can indulge in and enjoy, but Initial D was pretty much one of my nostalgiac center pieces of joy, there are alternatives you can opt for if you like to watch the series like certain kinds of websites I usually refer to as bootleg sites where you can stream movies or tv shows for free but beware if you try to stream movies or tv shows on a bootleg site, be sure you have good antivirus software because these free streaming sites tend to have malicious spam or malware on them so it's usually a good idea to have computer protected first, other than that if you already have it than give it a shot and try to find some Initial D if they have it on their website or better yet just buy the dvd's and the manga, that would be a better alternative.

6: Audi sacks German Formula E driver Daniel Abt after caught cheating in a charity e-sports video game race.

so the story goes that there was a charity event going on back in May 2020, a virtual e-sports race to raise some money.
Audi was one of the entrants competing in the race and they assigned Daniel Abt, a young Formula E driver from Germany to drive in the race.
but Daniel stupidly enough had an idea, he decides to try to cheat, soooooo, takes the controller or wheel (most likely a gaming wheel), passes it on to an 18 year old austrian e-sports athlete named Lorenz Hoerzing, and have Hoerzing impersonate him and drive in his place in the charity race.
the race starts and Hoerzing is leading the race by an insanely large margin which quickly raised suspicion among officials, rivals and Audi especially before eventually they eventually figured out what was going on and they were caught.
as a result Audi fired Daniel Abt and permanently parted ways from him.
Daniel was disqualified but dutifully he made a generous donation of 8,900 German Marks to the charity, and he said this "It's a game, a simulation which does not have anything in common with real racing. It's definitely very far away from what makes a real Formula E car".
real or not and whether or not it's just a game doesn't change a fact at all, cheating is still cheating and it will never tolerated by anyone, especially not by a manufacturer like Audi who have a reputation to maintain and will punish anyone that tries to tarnish it through cheating in motorsports whether in real life on a racetrack or at an e-sports event on a large screen.
now Abt admitted he made a huge mistake and hopes that they would forgive him, Audi can forgive him but I doubt they'll ever hire him back, and rest assured he learned a pretty valuable from all of this and I hope he can find another drive with another factory team.

5: the Ford Motor Company fallout...video here....the Ford Motor Company...insert news article here...the Ford Motor Company....fallout...insert article here.

yep it's on my list, a century old car maker I always held in high regard and been a big fanboy of since I was a little lad and fell in love with cars, who's family used to work for Ford, who's Aunt used to be a production manager of the Lima Assembly plant up in Ohio who at one time gave President Barrack Obama a tour of the plant which made front page news and featured a photo in the paper of my Aunt showing Obama a brand new assembled Ford Taurus which he was sitting in taking a look at during the tour, oh yeah, my 90's childhood as well as the years 2008 through 2010 were some of the best years of my life so far, I never felt soo proud of my family at that time, oh god what a time for me to be alive that was.
okay, okay bragging aside, as good as Ford has been a little lately with the new limited edition Mustang Mach-1 and the new Shelby GT500, to the soon to be released 2021 Bronco, Ford has also been through a rough patch in my opinion ever since it all started back in 2018 from the time when they announced they will stop making cars and focus on crossovers (BARF!), suv's, and pick up trucks, to the time they deceived us when teased about an electric Mustang and got us all hyped for it to then find out upon the official reveal that is what we expected but instead are trying to turn it into a (BARF!) crossover and swindled Ken Block and Jay Leno into endorsing it, to Ford ignoring customers and screwing them over, to the most recent recall that happened this year in 2020 on brand new Ford F-series Super Duty trucks regarding floor mats telling customers that they can fix it themselves using nothing more than DUCKTAPE!!!!...TO FIX THE PROBLEM!!!!
it has been a very rough few years for Ford in my honest opinion and if Ford doesn't straighten themselves out and cleans up their act, they're going to be big big trouble, the fans, myself included, are not gonna take this bullshit anymore and I'm sure employees at this point are gonna fed up if not already because not only will some Ford employees be workers for the blue oval?, but I'm pretty sure some them are devoted loyal die-hard of the blue oval like me, but if Ford continues down the path they're going right now, those loyal die hards are gonna jump ship and take loyalty to other carmakers, like I have already pretty much showing a little love for Audi and even some the marques under Fiat-Chrysler's wing such as Dodge, Alfa Romeo, and even Ferrari (rumor has it I'll likely be driving for either Alfa Romeo or Ferrari in GT Sport very soon next year if I decide too), but that's the way it's gonna be if Ford doesn't redeem itself and turn itself around, it's riding a thin line between life and death right now, come on Ford before it's too late and you get burned.

4: Red Bull Formula One chief makes incredible claim that he WANTED his drivers to be infected with coronavirus at a 'CORONA CAMP' so they would be immune in time for the racing season

yeah, you heard it right, Red Bull Chief Marko Helmut wanted all his drivers to get Covid-19, what the actual flying fuck Helmut!?, what the fuck is wrong with you!?
according to the DailyMail a British news website, Helmut Marko wanted to put all of his Red Bull drivers together in a "corona camp" and have them catch the virus (that's eight seasoned drivers including their number driver Max Verstappen, and 10 junior drivers as well totaling out to eighteen).
the rest of the red bull team didn't share his enthusiasm when he boldly made that statement on national TV in Austria and I don't fucking blame them, Helmut is clearly the biggest and oldest covidiot alive and I would love to see him fired from his position if he should even try it, but I would like to see him apologize for making such a stupid statement like he did.
you're probably wondering why he would make a stupid statement like that wanting to get his drivers infected?, well I can tell you why?
to get his drivers prepared whenever the action starts, ready for what will be a tough championship.
in case you don't quite understand that reason, what Helmut is trying to say is that according to medical experts, people who contract virus and recover from it are less likely to contract it again, so by saying he would want to get his drivers infected with the virus and hopefully recover from it, they'll never catch it again and thus will be battle hardened and immuned to it thus able to race and hopefully and effectively win the Formula World Championship, oh what an ingenious feet of brainstorming on his part except he left one little detail, even if they are strong and healthy boys they can still be at risk of dying from the virus as we have learned the recent spring break fiasco when five young rich spring breakers in their teens to early 20's down in Florida died after coming home from spring break when they inadvertantly contracted the virus, anyone still remember that bit of Patrick Star like stupidity?
obviously enough Marko Helmut's statement was not very well accepted and he admitted that his highly controversial plan was dismissed out of hand by the Red Bull staff and again I don't blame them, and if he contracts the virus somehow? we'll see how he likes his plan then and maybe he'll twice about it.

3: Nikita Mazepin

Nikita Mazepin is a bit of a dick in case you didn't know already, and the only why I say that is because he has a tendency of getting himself into trouble usually for a quarrel he has with another driver, and the racing organization and his team Haas racing are absolutely fed up.
Nikita has a rough past of a quarrel with another driver Callum Ilot which started back in European Formula 3 when Mazepin earned a one race ban after punching Callum in the face over a disagreement following pre race practice at Hungagoring back in 2016 and Mazepin (when Callum's race team manager seperated the two of them when he saw them in each other's faces practically) turned right back around and attacked him.
he even has a history of social media indiscretions, and multiple time penalties this year in 2020 for his driving (likely reckless if I had to make a guess), but the most recent penalty he earned and in Formula 2 by the way, in a race in Bahrain, he earned himself two seperate penalties for forcing other drivers to take evasive moves on the track in a straight line.
and let's not forget the five second penalty he earned at Spa for forcing Yuki Tsunoda off the race track, costing him his chance to win the race, and in poor sportasmanship Nikita kicked the P2 marker board out of the way when returning to Parc Ferme, almost striking Tsunoda in the process.
now do you see where I'm going with this guys?, he's basically a ticking time bomb waiting to go off at anytime, oh yes one more controversial thing with him I forgot to point out and it's the latest one yet, but it involves a video he posted of himself groping a woman sitting behind him in a car and even tagging that poor woman's name in the video description.
she later responded once the fallout over it flared up defending Mazepin and saying this, "nothing from that video was serious at all", but inspite of her statement, people are already calling him Nikita to be possibly arrested.
he posted a video!...of himself groping a woman in the backseat of a car!, his stupidity clearly knows no bounds.
now Haas racing (the team that he drives for) is not gonna condone his behavior from that video but they did state that his video was very adhorrent to the Haas F1 team, they even went on to say that his behavior is wrong but we're talking about different levels of wrong doing here, but just how wrong is very much dependent on context and feelings or emotions that we can’t know just from seeing a short video clip, So instead of delving into the nuance and second-guessing all the different potential scenarios, I’m only focusing now on the fact that he somehow thought anything like that was a good idea to let get on to his social media account in the first place.
oh yes there's even this bit in addition to all of the above, (I say “let get on” because D’IVal claims to have uploaded it to Mazepin’s account herself “as an internal joke”.)
at this point how does an F1 driver who had recently been confiirmed onto an F1 team, who already has a tarnished reputation, think that this is gonna fly?, well I'll tell you right now, it's not gonna fly, in fact if I had to make good guess at a projected outcome?, it's gonna fall flat on it's face, and I doubt he'll make it very far in the sport at the pace he's going right now.

2: Ford Mustang Mach-E

Ford's Mustang Mach-E, suuuuuuuuuucks!, as far as I can see it has been nearly talked about to death.
it started with a teaser a couple of years back that Ford was working the first ever all electric Mustang and presented to us with a black background with a silhouette of the grill and headlights with it's trademark running horse adorned on it.
fast forward a year to late 2019, Ford finally unveils it, but it's unveiled to the Mustang fan community's pure unadulterated horror.
the Mustang that Ford revealed to us, looks more like a blasphemous abomination rather than the iconic long hood short deck two door fastback sports coupe that we all know, love, and always want.
we were led to believe that Ford was going to radically change the Mustang, to continue to help it change and adapt with the changing times, well they radically changed it alright, in fact I was lied too, I feel like we were all lied too and betrayed, BETRAYAL!.
and the fallout that followed had really blown up on the internet, especially on Twitter where nearly everyone has been expressing their disgust, thus #NOTAMUSTANG, was created and sent into Twitter orbit of cyberspace.
and if that isn't bad enough, Ford has even managed to shoehorn Ken Block and Jay Leno?, into endorsing this piece of bullshit.
and again like I said before, at this point some Ford die hards had jumpship to other carmakers, myself included, these days I've been leaning more towards Fiat-Chrysler Autombiles (FCA), because so far I've been impressed with their line up vehicles they had to offer, at least they still the kind of vehicles I like, sedans and coupes, and even lean towards Volkswagons and Audis.
and I doubt that I'll ever turn back, at least not for a long while until somebody more competent is in charge of the blue oval, and yes, I bet you didn't think Ford would make it on this list twice, well apparently, they did.

1: Nascar and the noosegate controversy

if you guys remembered short time back this year?, I did a review on the noosegate fiasco.
it's the controversy that tarnished Nascar's reputation forever, it all started back in June of 2020 when someone (possibly a team member) found a what looked like a noose hanging by the door of Bubba Wallace's garage at Talledega.
it was reported Nascar president Steve Phelps, then Phelps reported it to Bubba Wallace and Richard Petty, in their outrage?, Phelps called the FBI to investigate it, halfway into the investigation, Phelps made the incedent public and in an instant it exploded on social media, it became the talk of twitter and the news media, except...upon close and careful investigation?, it turned to just be a regular garage door pull handle.
fans right away were quick to change from incedent?, to publicity stunt, and they point the blame squarely at Bubba Wallace, being called Bubba Smollet and other kinds of backlash at him.
although there's just one little hiccup, in my honest opinion?, it's not entirely Bubba's fault, he just saw the photo and just did a tweet about it saying that a noose was discovered in his pit garage, I believe he was really genuinely scared for his life and for his family's safety, thinking what he saw really was a noose, and he especially sounded convinced that it was one, if there's anyone that really deserves all the blame?, it's Steve Phelps, in his stupidity?, he threw this out on social media waay too early before the FBI completed their investigation and could come to a conclusion that it wasn't a noose at all, and now it has become a social media hot potato, it has tarnished Nascar's reputation resulting in a decline in ratings, and I hope that he gets axed out from his position as president of the sport and hope something like this never ever happens again.

well that concludes this first ever compilation list of automotive controversies, 2020 has been a really fucked up year with the VARUS (Corona Virus), violence and tension in major cities across the U.S, and these top 7 controversies of the auto and racing industries.
I probably won't be doing very many reviews next year in 2021 because I'll be experimenting with video making software and creating my own youtube channel to try to kickstart my dream of an online career talking car stuff, 2021 is gonna be a year that I'll focusing on myself and filling a gap that should've been filled along time ago, getting my driver's license and a car that actually runs or finding someone who can help me fix the one I have right now.
now I'll end off the year wishing you all a very merry Xmas and happy new year, and 2020?, in John Oliver's own words?, get fucked!