bagginsbill,  I was able to get an acceptable wheel spin blur, but it doesn't look like the background is moving at all in my image... specifically the trees.

I used shutter close of .500 @ 30 fps over 90 frames, and that worked great for the wheel spin, but the background hardly showed any movement.

I also decided to move the background instead of the car and camera. ( i can always try the opposite )

After that I reduced the total frames to 45 and the same distance from point a to point b and that amplified the background blur way too much.... that is also the point where the render would not complete, due to lack of memory.

I think this is gonna be a trial an error session until I find the right amounts of frames and physical movement. I gotta say, this has been pretty fun so far, even if i havent figured it out completely yet.

I love the idea of slowing the camera down a bit.... that render looks the best IMO

I really appreciate your input, thanks.