UPDATE: We’ve been told that the GT Academy winner has been crowned. Congratulations to Bryan Heitkotter – who was actually the top qualifier at Orlando as well – as he begins his training for the real deal. The show won’t air until September, but you can see Bryan’s Meet the Finalists video at nissanusa.com.

Back in March we had the chance to head to the GT Academy qualifiers – a tournament held to lower a field of 32 of the world’s best virtual drivers down to the 16 that would head to Silverstone and onto the GT Academy reality show. That show is now underway, with contestants competing in live racing events, all hoping to win the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to become a real pro driver on a Nissan racing team.

The series won’t air until the fall, but in the meantime, Nissan and Sony are offering some behind the scenes sneak peeks of what the competition is like for the 16 contestants. There is the usual picture and video content, but the pro drivers on hand at Silverstone have also been answering questions from the GT Academy Facebook page. Watch the video above for a tour of the Race Camp with the Academy contestants, and be sure to keep up with the show’s Facebook page. Just in case you missed it, you can see our writeup of the qualifiers at the Bullz-Eye Games channel.

Summer weather has finally arrived around most of the country, so people are getting outside and finally enjoying themselves. As you take a look at your wardrobe, you’ll want to add some casual shoes to compliment your summer clothes. Flip flops, sneakers and sandals are great, but if you’re looking for more options to go with shorts, jeans or casual pants, check out the new line of canvas shoes from Lugz. The line blends classic designs like durable boat shoes and laid-back slip-ons for a unique look that’s classic and fresh. The line features three new styles: Sparks, Marina and Marsh.

We tried out the two pairs listed above and we loved them. They’re very comfortable and offer a great option. There’s a wide variety of colors to choose from and they’re great for daily use or a night out. The canvas shoes also offer a great way to break out from the sandals and sneakers everyone else is wearing. So mix it up a bit and add a new option to perk up your summer style!

Baseball fans love their stats, particularly fantasy owners looking for an edge. Whether you’re a certified stat geek or your fantasy league’s reigning champ, you could spend hours digging through the vast pool of information found in the Bill James Baseball IQ app. Created by Steve Selfors in collaboration with noted historian and stat savant Bill James and developer American Eagle, Baseball IQ sets itself apart from other statistics-based baseball apps by putting the sport’s endless stream of useful data into the hands of its most rabid fans with full color graphics that are easy to both navigate and understand.

Say, for example, you want to see how Toronto’s Jose Bautista, the game’s current home run king, has fared against Yankees ace CC Sabathia throughout his career. Well, for starters, that’s just too simple for this app. In fact, with a few clicks, you can see Sabathia’s lifetime stats against every hitter on Toronto’s roster (Bautista, incidentally, is 0-30 against the large lefty with 14 strikeouts…yikes). Want to see a location breakdown for Bautista’s 14 Ks vs. Sabathia? Check out the K Zone chart. Wondering how those numbers stack up against Bautista’s stats against other Yankee starters, or any other pitcher in the game over the last year? Last two years? Last three years? Check. With Hit Locator, you can see where Bautista is most likely to hit the ball in certain situations (against particular pitchers, in a specific ballpark, with an 0-2 count, etc.), and with Hit Zone, you can see the location of pitches in and around the strike zone where Bautista tends to get his hits. Of course, these breakdowns are available for every player in the game over the last three years, and the app also allows you to stack one player’s stats up against another’s over a set time period and against particular teams and/or pitchers. Pretty cool.

But we’re just scratching the surface here. The bottom line is, you’ll find stats on the Bill James Baseball IQ app that you won’t see anywhere else, giving you the knowledge you need to impress your friends at the bar while continuing to dominate those same friends in your fantasy baseball league.

As the name implies, this drink is perhaps the very oldest classic cocktail extant and, as with the Martini, it carries with it as much controversy and variation as you can possibly imagine. It’s staying power is no mystery in that it’s based on the fact that whiskey has some natural sweetness to it and, as Julie Andrews and the Sherman Brothers remind us, just a very literal spoonful of sugar really does help that medicine go down

Oddly enough, for such a simple drink, it’s one that only the best bartenders we’ve met seem to have mastered. On the other hand, as “Mad Men” viewers will remember from one particular episode, Don Draper has, too.

The Old Fashioned

2 ounces of whiskey (bourbon, rye, or Canadian)
1 teaspoon of superfine sugar and 1/2 ounce water, or 1/2 ounce of simple syrup
Angostura or Regan’s Orange Bitters
Orange wedge and/or maraschino cheery (very optional)

Dissolve superfine sugar — regular table sugar or cubes will also work but are harder to dissolve — in water or pour 1/2 ounce of simple syrup (i.e., sugar water) into an wide mouth Old Fashioned glass. If you like, muddle (smash) an orange slice in the bottom of the glass. Add ice cubes, whiskey and bitters — again, we personally prefer Angostura for bourbon or rye or Regan’s Orange for Canadian, but it’s your call. Stir vigorously with a swizzle stick or club spoon. If you like it a bit diluted, feel free to add just a bit of water, though purists will disagree wildly.

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Now, as I alluded to above, there are a great many controversies about the Old Fashioned and what works best in one. Don Draper and I are quite partial to the muddled orange slice and/or marischino cherry, particularly if it’s one of the very expensive gourmet cherries you’ll find at some excellent high-end bars. Famed politics and cocktail maven Rachel Maddow finds all that sweetness to be of the sickly variety and offers only a slice of lemon zest in a move that’s similar to the traditional recipe for the sazerac, a drink we’ll be covering later. She also uses a sugar cube and a muddler rather than my preferred choice of using superfine sugar or simple syrup for an easier sugar distribution, as well as soda water. Esquire‘s resident cocktail historian, David Wondrich, is of a similar mind.

I will say that I haven’t tried using soda water in the tiny quantities that Ms. Maddow does, nor have I tried one with as little ice, but I will be giving  the Maddow/Wondrich historical version a shot soon enough. It might be a bit strong for most people, but since Wondrich and Maddow suggest two of my favorite products — Canadian Club and Rittenhouse Rye (100 proof — yes, sir!) — I’m optimistic that this originalist take might just work as well.

On the the other hand, while I’ve been known to (gasp!) water my Old Fashioneds with just an additional splash or two, using a significant amount of soda water for this purpose is a big no-no, though it’s standard practice at many bars. Moreover, do not use maraschino “juice” in place of sugar/simple syrup, also standard practice at a lot of watering holes. To be scientific about it, it comes out way icky that way. I think me, Maddow, Wondrich, and even Draper would agree about that.

Hitting the interwebs earlier today, boom shacka lacka lacka lacka lacka, here’s Coldplay’s new single. And surprise! It sounds like Coldplay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The album title and release date are still TBD, but the lead single’s a good one, another rafter-shaking, sky-high melody in the vein of “Talk” and “Viva La Vida.” A much better first step than Viva La Vida‘s lead single “Violet Hill,” that’s for sure. More, please, and soon.