Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nofenders/zbjv/~3/TPINKDlHnw0/bulling-over-competition.html
Colin Davis Jimmy Daywalt JeanDenis Deletraz Patrick Depailler
Saturday
Kimi Raikkonen ran into a dead end during the Brazilian Grand Prix
When we last saw fabled driver Kimi Raikkonen around these parts, he was getting his first F1 win since returning to the series by winning at Abu Dhabi.
During Sunday's rainy F1 finale at Brazil, Raikkonen was exporing new territory. And it didn't work out so well.
After sliding off-track in a corner, Raikkonen saw an opening in the wall beyond the track and pointed his car towards it. The only problem was that the access road didn't go anywhere. After gunning it up a hill, Raikkonen was forced to turn around and re-enter the circuit through the entrance he came in.
But the awesomeness doesn't end there. Instead of taking the access road back towards the track ? that would have been the long way around, after all ? Raikkonen veered his car to the right through the grass and rejoined the race. He finished 10th.
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Friday
Chase Power Rankings: It ends here!
The penultimate race of the Chase is over, and that means it's time for Power Rankings! But we're doing things a little differently now that we're in the postseason. It's all-Chasers, all the time. Good job, good effort for those of you that didn't make it, but we've got bigger fish to focus on. We'll be judging who's running well, considering not just finishing position but quality of run, expected potential, and general gut feelings. As always, we hate your guy and are biased against him. Now, enjoy.
1. Brad Keselowski. Man, what a turn of events for @Kes. Eighteen months ago, he was Kurt Busch's barely-known teammate, a guy more famous for who he wrecked than how he drove. Now? Amazing run to the very brink of a championship. He's got work to do, but not nearly as much as he might have. Last week: 2.
2. Jimmie Johnson. And what a turn of events for Vader. Last week, there wasn't a NASCAR fan alive who seriously thought Johnson wouldn't be gearing up for his sixth championship. Now? Well, we fully expect Johnson to make a race out of this, but it's going to be a huge hill to climb. Keselowski isn't going away. Last week: 1.
3. Clint Bowyer. A shame Jeff Gordon's temporary lunacy took out Bowyer, but it doesn't detract from what's been an outstanding season for ol' Rawhide. Plenty of people thought he was taking a huge leap downward by going from RCR to Waltrip, but as it turned out, the reverse was true. Bowyer brought home three wins and, along with Martin Truex Jr., raised MWR to respectability. Last week: 3.
4. Kasey Kahne. I had a radio host ask me this week if Kahne's final initiation into Hendrick would be to take out Keselowski early in the race. That'd be awesome, wouldn't it? Like Sons of Anarchy with twice as many wheels. Anyway, this year is a testament to Kahne's persistence; after his horrendous start, everyone had written him off, but he fought his way into the Chase and a probable top-5 season finish. That ain't bad for a start. Last week: 4.
5. Denny Hamlin. Five wins and one spectacularly ill-timed mechanical failure characterized the season for Hamlin. He's still looking for that elusive championship, but if he can carry the momentum he had for all but one of the races this year, he'll be someone to watch next year. Last week: 6.
6. Matt Kenseth. One last run for Roush Fenway, closing off a spectacular career there. It's been a strong year for Kenseth, though it had his traditional start-fast-and-then-slide run. Will Joe Gibbs Racing reverse that trend? Last week: 5.
7. Greg Biffle. Tough Chase for Biffle, but the regular season should demonstrate to everyone else that he belongs at the top of the rankings. Also, he continues his decade-long trend of winning two races every even-numbered year. Last week: 10.
8. Kevin Harvick. Nice job of salvaging the season with a victory at Phoenix, Happy! It was a forgettable 2012 on the track, but Harvick now heads into one of those strange lame-duck seasons. Good luck, everybody. Last week: 12.
9. Jeff Gordon. Like Bowyer, it's a shame that l'affaire Bowyer will define his season. He put on one of the better runs of sustained excellence in the late summer to get into the Chase, only to see it all blow up in Chicago. Last week: 7.
10. Tony Stewart. He started fast, getting three wins early, and then pretty much vanished from the conversation altogether. But as last year showed, he can come out of nowhere. Might be time to start, Tony. Last week: 9.
11. Martin Truex Jr. Tough go there for Truex in Phoenix, but it shouldn't detract from a breakout season. And he'll get that win one of these days. Last week: 8.
12. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Look, Junior effectively gets a mulligan on the Chase because of his concussion. But what's indisputable is that his regular season was something worth noting. He's got that win monkey gone, and next year, we expect greatness. Nothing less. Last week: 11.
All right, you're up. Who goes where? Go!
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Johnson tries very hard to rattle Keselowski in final pre-championship press conference
Jimmie Johnson did his best to rattle Brad Keselowski on Thursday at the Sprint Cup championship contenders' press conference. But Johnson may have ended up unintentionally proving that Keselowski is the worthy rival Johnson's needed all these years.
Since Johnson began winning championships back in 2006, he's vanquished a host of the best names in NASCAR: Gordon, Edwards, Martin, Hamlin, Harvick. Since 2006, he's never gone toe-to-toe with a fellow driver heading into the final race and lost. But then, he's facing a far tougher challenge now than in any of his five championship seasons. He sits 20 points behind Keselowski, requiring both a strong finish from his own team and a weak one from Keselowski.
[Related: Final Chase Power Rankings]
"Brad," Johnson said, mock-helpfully, "if you'd like me to call later and remind you ... of guys that didn't pull off the season finale as they would hope."
With talk to Twitter and families, along with some attempts at baiting that fell flat, this year's conference was far tamer than the past two years. In 2010, Johnson and Harvick tag-teamed Hamlin with such psychological ferocity that Hamlin's legs were shaking. And last year, Tony Stewart hammered Carl Edwards until Edwards could find his footing. You could argue, perhaps, that the winner of the psychological battle on Thursday was able to turn that victory into a major win on Sunday.
If that's the case, Johnson has reason to be worried. He used the exact same "all the pressure's on him" lines on Keselowski that worked so well on Hamlin two years ago:
"The magnitude [of an impending championship] sets in at some point," he said. "I've been the guy leading the points ... You're forced to answer questions that you're not used to answering, that you don't want to answer, and it builds through the course of the week. Again, it hits everybody differently, and there's no guarantees how it'll hit him.� But I know from my own experience that there have been those moments.� Fortunately I responded well to them.� We'll see how the weekend goes."
[Also: Jeff Gordon fined $100K, docked 25 points for wrecking Clint Bowyer]
But this time around, Keselowski wasn't biting. Indeed, Keselowski indicated he'd double down on the aggressive approach that's gotten him this far:
"One of my favorite movies in the whole wide world is this documentary on Ayrton Senna, and there's this really powerful scene in that movie that sticks with me when I think about this weekend," he said. "I think about this scene in the movie when they talked about him at Monaco, which was his ?? just his phenomenal track that he was so strong at and how he had this huge lead over his teammate ... and they were coming down to the closing laps of the race, and they told him to slow down, you have a huge lead, don't worry, just slow down, just�?? and he wrecked. And I think of that as I approach this weekend.� I'm going to go out there and play my game, race my way.� That's got us to this point, and if we do that, we'll be fine."
2010 was a decisive knockout for Johnson. 2011 was a split-decision win on points for Stewart. 2012? To be the man, you gotta beat the man, and Keselowski weathered Johnson's best shots. The Blue Deuce gets the win on Thursday; we'll see how that translates on Sunday.
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Lewis Hamilton takes first Formula 1 race in United States since 2007
If the cowboy hats donned on the heads of the drivers atop the podium after Sunday's United States Grand Prix were any indication, Formula 1 enjoyed its stay in the Lone Star state this weekend.
The world's most prominent racing series was back in the states for the first time since the 2007 USGP at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And from the early returns; the enthusiasm, the crowd (an announced 80,000+ attended qualifying on Saturday), and the lack of traffic problems, this inaugural race at the Circuit of the Americas just outside Austin was a success. And it'll be the most-watched race of the entire weekend.
Yeah, that's including the Sprint Cup season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
On the American scene, the date choice for the first Circuit of the Americas United States Grand Prix seemed a curious one. It was up against the NFL's early games and scheduled to end during the opening segment of the Ford 400. (The University of Texas football team was off on Saturday.) Did Bernie Ecclestone and F1 want to steal some of NASCAR's thunder? Did they want to directly compete with the Cowboys and Texans? Heck, does the sanctioning body even care enough about those U.S. factors to even consider them?
After all, this is Formula 1, the land of seemingly budgetless racing.
Mario Andretti was at the U.S. Grand Prix and said to the Austin American-Statesman, said that the two races shouldn't have been run on the same day. The man would seem to be a pretty good resource on the subject; after all, he's run in both series.
"You do have a crossover of fans," Andretti said Friday. "I know, personally, some people who are down there and would've been here. And maybe even vise versa."
The Circuit of the Americas is a 3.427 mile track just southeast of Austin-Bergstrom Airport and many drivers were worried about the track's tricky approach to turn one, especially on the first lap. The run up to the almost 180 degree turn featured a steep hill into the braking zone and into the apex, which, because of the incline, seemed like it almost came out of nowhere to the drivers.
But the first lap of the race was clean, and polesitter and points leader Sebastian Vettel sprinted out to a substantial lead over teammate Mark Webber, who took second from Lewis Hamilton on the start.
However, Hamilton dispatched Webber (who ended up retiring from an engine failure) and eventually reeled in Vettel, taking the lead after the polesitter led the first 41 laps. Hamilton held on to win by six tenths of a second. (Side note: During a mid-race pit stop, Hamilton's pit crew changed all four tires on his car in an astonishing 2.4 seconds.)
That, along with Fernando Alonso's fourth place finish, meant that Vettel wasn't able to clinch the points championship at Austin and will carry a 13 point lead over Alonso into the season's final race in Sao Paulo, Brazil next weekend.
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New Beetle Cabrio Novelty For The Hall Los Angeles 2012
The new Beetle Cabrio reach the European market in spring 2013, and follows the Beetle Cabrio 1949 New Beetle and 2002. And while it is always said that third parties were never good, this third generation of the Volkswagen New Beetle hit the market and stomping fun driving this convertible vehicle insured for four people. [...]
Source: http://www.autocarblog.co.uk/359-new-beetle-cabrio-novelty-for-the-hall-los-angeles-2012.html
Thursday
Joey Logano wore his firesuit suit to the Nationwide Series Banquet
Joey, we're glad you had the opportunity to wear this beauty one more time before you head off to Penske Racing.
Michael Andretti Keith Andrews Elio de Angelis Marco Apicella
Wednesday
The Year That Was: A splash n? go history of 2012 in the world of NASCAR
Can't believe we're already at the end of the year! Why, it seems like just yesterday that we were all basking in the glow of Juan Pablo Montoya's jet dryer fire at Daytona.
February
The season started with a rain-delayed Daytona 500. During the rain, we were joined for an impromptu live chat by a fella named Brad Keselowski. What ever happened to him? Once the race started, it wasn't long -- as in, two laps -- before Jimmie Johnson and Danica Patrick were taken out in a wreck. But the big story was the inferno caused by Montoya's collision with a jet dryer. That halted the race, allowing Keselowski to become the Twitter sensation that he is today. Oh, yeah, and Matt Kenseth won the race. We also saw the high school yearbook photos of a few of your favorite drivers.
[Related: Danica Patrick to divorce after seven years of marriage | Photos]
March
NASCAR came down hard -- for a little while, at least -- on the 48 team for unauthorized modifications. A few drivers got a handful of Tony Stewart on live TV. In Bristol, Keselowski won his first race of the season. In the first of many ugly events for Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. cut his tire, ending Gordon's Bristol day early. Clint Bowyer collected Gordon and Johnson in a late wreck at Martinsville that would have no later recriminations whatsoever.
April
Check out a bird's-eye (well, satellite's-eye) view of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car graveyard. Denny Hamlin's second win of the season, at Kansas, made the #11 the winningest number in NASCAR ever.
May
Danica Patrick showed some salt by crashing Sam Hornish Jr. after the checkered flag at the Talladega Nationwide race. At the Sprint Cup race, another monstrous wreck led to differing opinions; meanwhile, Keselowski won again on a daring last-lap move on Kyle Busch. Talladega was also the second half of a Kentucky Derby/NASCAR two-day infield jaunt that we haven't totally recovered from. At Darlington, Jimmie Johnson scored win No. 200 for Hendrick Motorsports, and Kurt Busch got into a fight with Ryan Newman's crew and got himself suspended for a race. Off the track, Jeremy Mayfield was ordered to pay $1 million for his dogs' attack on a postal carrier, and NASCAR named its 2013 Hall of Fame class.
[Related: Beer-chugging champ Brad Keselowski is perfect NASCAR pitchman]
June
DALE EARNHARDT JR. WON A RACE. In other news, Carl Edwards fell out of the top 10 after hitting a wall at Dover, continuing a long slow slide. His teammate Matt Kenseth revealed he'd be leaving the 17 and Roush Fenway after the 2012 season.
July
AJ Allmendinger failed a drug test, setting off an unfortunate chain of events that saw him leave the Penske team. And, for a moment, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in first place in the standings.
August
Sadness as a fan died from a lightning strike outside Pocono. Mark Martin had a scary wreck that could have been much worse at Michigan. Tony Stewart threw his helmet at Matt Kenseth at Bristol in the best fight of the year between drivers. It couldn't possibly get any better than that, could it?
September
Merry-go-round: Matt Kenseth revealed he's headed to Joe Gibbs Racing, while Joey Logano headed to Penske. A blown pit call in Richmond cost Kyle Busch a slot in the Chase and a possible championship shot. After yet another tumultuous season, Kurt Busch jumps to Furniture Row Racing.
[Related: Clint Bowyer pleased with second-place finish in points race]
October
Dale Earnhardt Jr. suffered a concussion in a monstrous Talladega wreck and missed two races. Denny Hamlin's championship chances vanished after mechanical problems at Martinsville.
November
In a perfect metaphor for his season, Kevin Harvick's car was hit by a parachuter's sandbag right before the Texas race. But Harvick had better news ahead, as he is reportedly headed to Stewart-Haas in 2014. Oh, and there was a little disagreement between the crews of Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer. In the end, however, the last man standing was Brad Keselowski, who hammered down his first Sprint Cup championship with an exceptional Chase.
Congrats to Brad, and thanks to all of you for a great season! We'll see you ... well, we'll see you all offseason. Stick around, won't you? Only three months to Daytona!
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Montezemolo on technical constraints, testing and third cars?
Luca di Montezemolo was in good form in today?s meeting with the media in Italy, and as well as discussing his team?s season the Ferrari boss aired his views on the bigger picture. As in the past he stressed the … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/12/20/montezemolo-on-technical-constraints-testing-and-third-cars/
Sachsenring MotoGP Round Could Move Back To July 14th After F1 Calendar Change
The date of the German round of MotoGP at the Sachsenring is once again surrounded by uncertainty. A minor readjustment of the Formula One calendar means that the German F1 and MotoGP races are once again scheduled for the same date, July 7th, meaning that the Sachsenring race could well be forced to move, with the following week, July 14th being an option, according to German-language website Speedweek.de.
The clash between the two series was caused by Formula One rescheduling the German F1 GP, the second time it has done so. A previous change had forced the Sachsenring to move from July 14th to July 7th, to accommodate F1 on the 14th. But now, the German F1 GP has been moved forward a week, to allow an extra race to be inserted in the calendar on July 21st.
Under an agreement between MotoGP and Formula One, the two series attempt to avoid schedule clashes as much as possible, and especially not to race in the same country on the same date. Holding both F1 and MotoGP in Germany on July 7th would cause major dilemmas for TV companies around the world, but especially in Germany, as to which to focus their resources on.
2012 season in the rear view: Tony Stewart
Vitals: 9th in the points standings. 3 wins, 12 top 5s, 16 top 10s. 2 DNFs.
Moment to remember: Tony Stewart was at his July Daytona best once again, winning for the fourth time in the last eight Coke Zero 400s.
To do it in 2012, he took advantage of a huge push from Kasey Kahne before Kahne got loose from contact with Jeff Burton and side-draft split apart Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle to take the lead for good on the backstretch before carnage erupted behind him in turn 4.
It was Smoke's third (and final) win of 2012.
Moment to forget: Like we've said before, the restrictor plate giveth and it also taketh away. Stewart was at the front of the pack at Talladega in the Chase on the final lap, but this time, instead of being far enough in front of the crash in turns three and four, he was the crash, flipping over after making contact with Michael Waltrip in an attempt to stay in front of both Waltrip and Casey Mears.
The wrap: How much different would Smoke's 2012 Chase have been had he taken the win and not the wreck at Talladega?
Stewart entered Talladega fifth in the points standings, 32 points out of the lead. He left 46 points back. Had he taken the lead, he would have scored 25 more points than he had (47 to 22) and would have been within approximately 20 points of the top of the standings.
Now, this isn't to say that Stewart was going to challenge Brad Keselowski, as Stewart had far too much of an up and down season (11 finishes outside the top 25) to seriously defend his championship. But it's entirely plausible that split second ended up being a difference of four spots in the standings.
2012 season in the rear view: Kevin Harvick
Vitals: 8th in the points standings. 1 win, 5 top fives, 14 top 10s. 2 DNFs.
Moment to remember: Phoenix International Raceway was very good to Kevin Harvick.
Harvick finished second and led 88 laps in the spring race at the track and then in the fall, took the lead on a lap 305 restart and held on for 15 laps for the victory, slipping and sliding through the fluid from Danica Patrick's wrecked race car in turns 3 and 4 on the way to the checkered flag. (And while the rest of the field crashed behind him.)
Moment to forget: Having finished outside the top 10 in the first five Chase races, Harvick's Chase chances weren't exactly good when the series hit Martinsville for the second time. And his expired engine made them worse, as it let go with 27 laps remaining in the race. Harvick finished 32nd.
The wrap: Cupcake made the Chase on a string of consistently top-half of the field finishes and a lack of DNFs. (Kyle Busch finished in the top five eight more times than Harvick did, and he didn't make the Chase.)
But, just like teammates Jeff Burton and Paul Menard, the speed to win races just wasn't there on a weekly basis for Harvick. Seven wins over the last two seasons led to consecutive third place finishes for Harvick, and it really looked for a while that Harvick was going to go winless in 2012 until those final laps at Phoenix.
Harvick is reportedly headed to Stewart-Haas Racing, but that's not until 2014. He's still got another year with Richard Childress Racing. Will his final season at Childress be one where he's fighting to stay in the Chase or battling for multiple victories?
Eugene Chaboud Jay Chamberlain Karun Chandhok Alain de Changy
Tuesday
Reminder Of What It?s Like Being A Race Fan
When you spend your weekends pitting race cars all across the country, you end up talking to a lot of race fans. With the drivers so busy with appearances and the like, the crews have become the next best attraction. The conversations are often short and usually consist of the same basic questions. How do [...] 
TheNASCARInsiders.com
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Honda S2000 A New Generation Seems more than Likely
Any comment or confirmation of one of the leaders of Honda may seem “little” to the news, though, as always, it all depends on what you speak or want to give nuance. This time the buzz responsible S2000 organized around a new generation has been caused, neither more nor less, than Nasshi Suehiro, head of [...]
Source: http://www.autocarblog.co.uk/380-honda-s2000-a-new-generation-seems-more-than-likely.html
Monday
2012 season in the rear view: Casey Mears
Vitals: 29th in the points standings. 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 0 top 10s. 11 DNFs.
Moment to remember: It's certainly not often that a team that starts and parks on occasion also starts on the pole for a Sprint Cup Series race, but that's what happened for Casey Mears and Germain Racing at Bristol in August. OK, OK, it wasn't a pole the traditional way, but let's not nitpick.
In the weekend's first practice session, Mears and team ran a quick lap in qualifying trim that held up while most teams were running race setups. Before the scheduled qualifying session, a thunderstorm moved over the track and wiped out qualifying. And with NASCAR's rule that the starting is determined by speed in the first practice if qualifying is rained out, Mears found himself on the pole. He led the first 26 laps of the race before finishing a lap down in 21st.
Moment to forget: The week after Bristol, Mears qualified 19th at Atlanta, poised to capitalize on the momentum from the previous race. However, his engine expired and he finished third.
Or we could go with Talladega in the fall, where Mears looked like he could have 1. pushed Michael Waltrip to the win or 2. won the race himself. But 3. he got caught up in that crash when Waltrip and Stewart made contact and 4. officially finished 26th.
The wrap: Mears' 11 DNFs are a tad misleading, because he retired due to "brakes" or a "vibration" five times in 2012, including both Pocono races. (Insert "It's Pocono, can you blame him for leaving early?" joke here.) When Mears went the distance, there were some promsing runs like four straight top 20 finishes at Michigan, Sonoma, Kentucky and Daytona. But immediately after that, the realities of an underfunded single car team hit and Mears start and parked two of the next three races.
Miss the banquet? Check out Brad Keselowski?s speech here
If you didn't have a chance to catch Friday night's Sprint Cup Series banquet and want to see Brad Keselowski's championship speech, we've got you covered.
Enjoy!
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Jeff Gordon wins final race of the 2012 Sprint Cup Series season
Jeff Gordon began the final race weekend of 2012 answering questions about his actions at Phoenix International Raceway five days before. And he ended the weekend in victory lane after winning the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Of course, he was answering questions about Phoenix there too. Because, in an all-too-coincidental outcome, the driver he had his Phoenix beef with, Clint Bowyer, finished second.
In the clip that's been replayed numerous times on televisions around the country and the world and brought NASCAR (good or bad, depending on your preference) attention on mainstream news outlets all over the country, Gordon retaliated against Bowyer for contact just laps earlier, and crashed both cars in the process. That led to a melee in the pits involving both drivers' teams, Gordon hiding in a tool box next to the scrum and Bowyer sprinting from his car on pit road all the way to Gordon's hauler in search of the four-time champion.
On Friday, Gordon expressed regret for letting his emotions get the best of him at Phoenix, and he and Bowyer both kept level heads during the 400 mile race. While they raced near each other for a significant portion of the race, there were no incidents nor sprints on Sunday.
"Can you believe that?" Gordon asked in victory lane when talking about finishing 1-2 with Bowyer. "You know, I mean there was one restart where I had Joey (Logano) and maybe even Aric (Almirola) and Clint right there surrounding me and, you know, we -- you know, that thing is going to work itself out some way through racing and, you know, I felt terrible about how I went about it and still regret the way I went about it but you know what, I can't take it back. What we can do is look forward and race guys as hard and clean as we possibly can and, you know, this is a great way to get some positive things going because this year has been real up and down. This awesome to have my family here in victory lane."
Logano and Almirola were caught up as collateral damage in the conflict between Bowyer and Gordon.
Kyle Busch led the race's highest number of laps and Martin Truex Jr. was hot on his tail most of the day, but Gordon was never far behind. While he hadn't led a lap until he took the lead for the first and final time, it certainly wasn't a "Where did he come from?" moment.
The catalyst for Gordon's win was a pit stop on lap 159 after the caution flag flew for Ricky Stenhouse's crash on lap 154. That was the race's final caution flag, and it allowed Gordon to make it the rest of the way on fuel on one more stop.
As the laps started to tick down, Busch and Truex were ahead of Gordon like they had been for most of the race. But they didn't pit during the caution for Stenhouse's crash like Gordon did. They needed a caution flag to fill up their gas tanks and stay near the front of the field.
Truex then brushed the wall while in hot pursuit of Busch and started to fade. Busch never got his caution flag. Gordon took the lead with 13 laps to go and kept a significant advantage over Bowyer, who never got close enough to entertain thoughts of revenge for what happened a week ago.
However, had the opportunity presented itself, it might not have been in Bowyer's best interests. Thanks to Jimmie Johnson's mechanical troubles, Bowyer's second place finish meant he jumped Johnson in the points standings to second, 39 points behind Keselowski and a point ahead of Johnson.
Thanks to his win, Gordon finishes the season in 10th place in the standings, four points ahead of Truex, and gets the final spot at the Sprint Cup Series banquet.
2012 season in the rear view: Tony Stewart
Vitals: 9th in the points standings. 3 wins, 12 top 5s, 16 top 10s. 2 DNFs.
Moment to remember: Tony Stewart was at his July Daytona best once again, winning for the fourth time in the last eight Coke Zero 400s.
To do it in 2012, he took advantage of a huge push from Kasey Kahne before Kahne got loose from contact with Jeff Burton and side-draft split apart Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle to take the lead for good on the backstretch before carnage erupted behind him in turn 4.
It was Smoke's third (and final) win of 2012.
Moment to forget: Like we've said before, the restrictor plate giveth and it also taketh away. Stewart was at the front of the pack at Talladega in the Chase on the final lap, but this time, instead of being far enough in front of the crash in turns three and four, he was the crash, flipping over after making contact with Michael Waltrip in an attempt to stay in front of both Waltrip and Casey Mears.
The wrap: How much different would Smoke's 2012 Chase have been had he taken the win and not the wreck at Talladega?
Stewart entered Talladega fifth in the points standings, 32 points out of the lead. He left 46 points back. Had he taken the lead, he would have scored 25 more points than he had (47 to 22) and would have been within approximately 20 points of the top of the standings.
Now, this isn't to say that Stewart was going to challenge Brad Keselowski, as Stewart had far too much of an up and down season (11 finishes outside the top 25) to seriously defend his championship. But it's entirely plausible that split second ended up being a difference of four spots in the standings.
Sunday
Montezemolo says F1 should follow Le Mans? lead | F1 Fanatic round-up
Montezemolo says F1 should follow Le Mans’ lead is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.
In the round-up: Montezemolo tells Ecclestone to liven up race weekends and hits back at him over the yellow flag controversy ? Button thought McLaren would win title
Montezemolo says F1 should follow Le Mans’ lead is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.
Source: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2012/12/21/f1-fanatic-roundup-2112/
Kurt Ahrens Jr Christijan Albers Michele Alboreto Jean Alesi
The Year That Was: A splash n? go history of 2012 in the world of NASCAR
Can't believe we're already at the end of the year! Why, it seems like just yesterday that we were all basking in the glow of Juan Pablo Montoya's jet dryer fire at Daytona.
February
The season started with a rain-delayed Daytona 500. During the rain, we were joined for an impromptu live chat by a fella named Brad Keselowski. What ever happened to him? Once the race started, it wasn't long -- as in, two laps -- before Jimmie Johnson and Danica Patrick were taken out in a wreck. But the big story was the inferno caused by Montoya's collision with a jet dryer. That halted the race, allowing Keselowski to become the Twitter sensation that he is today. Oh, yeah, and Matt Kenseth won the race. We also saw the high school yearbook photos of a few of your favorite drivers.
[Related: Danica Patrick to divorce after seven years of marriage | Photos]
March
NASCAR came down hard -- for a little while, at least -- on the 48 team for unauthorized modifications. A few drivers got a handful of Tony Stewart on live TV. In Bristol, Keselowski won his first race of the season. In the first of many ugly events for Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. cut his tire, ending Gordon's Bristol day early. Clint Bowyer collected Gordon and Johnson in a late wreck at Martinsville that would have no later recriminations whatsoever.
April
Check out a bird's-eye (well, satellite's-eye) view of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car graveyard. Denny Hamlin's second win of the season, at Kansas, made the #11 the winningest number in NASCAR ever.
May
Danica Patrick showed some salt by crashing Sam Hornish Jr. after the checkered flag at the Talladega Nationwide race. At the Sprint Cup race, another monstrous wreck led to differing opinions; meanwhile, Keselowski won again on a daring last-lap move on Kyle Busch. Talladega was also the second half of a Kentucky Derby/NASCAR two-day infield jaunt that we haven't totally recovered from. At Darlington, Jimmie Johnson scored win No. 200 for Hendrick Motorsports, and Kurt Busch got into a fight with Ryan Newman's crew and got himself suspended for a race. Off the track, Jeremy Mayfield was ordered to pay $1 million for his dogs' attack on a postal carrier, and NASCAR named its 2013 Hall of Fame class.
[Related: Beer-chugging champ Brad Keselowski is perfect NASCAR pitchman]
June
DALE EARNHARDT JR. WON A RACE. In other news, Carl Edwards fell out of the top 10 after hitting a wall at Dover, continuing a long slow slide. His teammate Matt Kenseth revealed he'd be leaving the 17 and Roush Fenway after the 2012 season.
July
AJ Allmendinger failed a drug test, setting off an unfortunate chain of events that saw him leave the Penske team. And, for a moment, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in first place in the standings.
August
Sadness as a fan died from a lightning strike outside Pocono. Mark Martin had a scary wreck that could have been much worse at Michigan. Tony Stewart threw his helmet at Matt Kenseth at Bristol in the best fight of the year between drivers. It couldn't possibly get any better than that, could it?
September
Merry-go-round: Matt Kenseth revealed he's headed to Joe Gibbs Racing, while Joey Logano headed to Penske. A blown pit call in Richmond cost Kyle Busch a slot in the Chase and a possible championship shot. After yet another tumultuous season, Kurt Busch jumps to Furniture Row Racing.
[Related: Clint Bowyer pleased with second-place finish in points race]
October
Dale Earnhardt Jr. suffered a concussion in a monstrous Talladega wreck and missed two races. Denny Hamlin's championship chances vanished after mechanical problems at Martinsville.
November
In a perfect metaphor for his season, Kevin Harvick's car was hit by a parachuter's sandbag right before the Texas race. But Harvick had better news ahead, as he is reportedly headed to Stewart-Haas in 2014. Oh, and there was a little disagreement between the crews of Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer. In the end, however, the last man standing was Brad Keselowski, who hammered down his first Sprint Cup championship with an exceptional Chase.
Congrats to Brad, and thanks to all of you for a great season! We'll see you ... well, we'll see you all offseason. Stick around, won't you? Only three months to Daytona!
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