Source: http://www.16thandgeorgetown.com/2012/10/munoz-lands-fil-500-ride-with-andretti.html
Mike Beuttler Birabongse Bhanubandh Lucien Bianchi Gino Bianco
Sunday
Ducati Press Release: Hayden Completes Jerez Test, Dovizioso Out With Neck Problem
Ducati's MotoGP team issued the following press release after the final three-day test of the year at Jerez:
Year:
2013
Roberto Bussinello Jenson Button Tommy Byrne Giulio Cabianca
Some Advice For Christmas
There was an article in the Charlotte Observer last week�about a woman named Christmas Abbott who is attempting to become a tire changer. She’s being supported in her effort by Turner Motorsports and is being coached by veteran jackman and coach Shaun Peet and the guys at Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR and Turner have a [...] 
TheNASCARInsiders.com
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNascarInsiders/~3/527IvTHlEAI/
BREAKING: Kenseth Out At Roush; To Gibbs
Sources are telling TNI, Roush Fenway executives announced to the organization today that Matt Kenseth would be leaving the team at the end of the season. Despite earlier rumors that Penske would be Kenseth’s destination, all signs indicate Joe Gibbs Racing as the driver’s future home. What that means for the Gibbs teams is not [...] 
TheNASCARInsiders.com
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNascarInsiders/~3/Vkga0Chqd_E/
Saturday
A lot of what-ifs
The fact that a video has emerged showing Sebastian Vettel overtake a Toro Rosso at the very end of a yellow flag section of track, where he could clearly see a green flag ahead of him on the road, and there is an argument about a green flag having been shown at a marshals post [...]
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/a-lot-of-what-ifs/
Sebastien Bourdais Thierry Boutsen Johnny Boyd David Brabham
How I Saw It? 2012 Super Review Part 1: Nuts and Bolts Edition
2012 will be remembered for close racing and an entirely new chassis/engine package that revolutionized the on-track product in the INDYCAR series. Not revolutionized, no, it was more of a renaissance of sorts. A return to a more historically correct … Continue reading 
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.
More NASCAR coverage from Yahoo! Sports:
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Friday
Is NASCAR a sport, or is it entertainment?
Good racing is not always good drama. Sorry, old-school race fans, but it's true. Sometimes, a masterfully run race is about as exciting as a parade, minus the candy thrown from the floats.
And as NASCAR heads into its final weekend of 2012, with both viewer interest and sponsor dollars on flimsy foundations, it's about time to confront the issue NASCAR has danced around for decades: Is this a sport, or is it entertainment?
Let's begin by clarifying the terms. We're not saying NASCAR is scripted, pro wrestling style, despite what some critics (and some drivers) would have you believe. But there is indeed manipulation of events to create drama, on both the micro (those phantom-debris caution flags) and macro (The Chase for the Sprint Cup) levels. NASCAR doesn't necessarily care who wins a race, but it wants a good battle before we all get there.
At its heart, NASCAR is the most fundamental of all sports: Whoever gets to the finish line first wins. Even toddlers understand this concept. And Ernest Hemingway had such an affinity for auto racing that he termed it one of the only real sports, along with mountain climbing and bullfighting. "All the rest," he said, "are merely games." It's a meaty, rally-the-race-fans quote, wrapped around the DNA of the sport and even repurposed as a promotional tag line for ESPN this year.
Thing is, Hemingway classified those three as "sports" because in his day, all had the very real potential to kill their participants. Certainly, the possibility for serious injury or worse still exists in NASCAR, but no NASCAR driver has died on-track since Dale Earnhardt in 2001. It's an uncomfortable fact to confront, but the sport's increased (and, yes, necessary) emphasis on safety has reduced the element of risk that drew many fans to the sport.
At the same time, NASCAR has taken steps to sculpt storylines and set the stage for drama. The biggest story of last week ? indeed, maybe the biggest story of the year ? wasn't the impending championship race, it was a fight between two drivers and their crews. Jeff Gordon vs. Clint Bowyer fired up the fan base in a way 20 routine cookie-cutter-track races combined couldn't do.
Despite what some fans scream, there's no grand conspiracy to determine a winner ? if that were the case, we wouldn't have five years of Jimmie Johnson winning and four years of Dale Earnhardt Jr. losing ? but NASCAR most definitely wants to put the pieces in place for a thrilling ending. It's like a Michael Bay movie where robot after giant robot after planet-sized robot shows up, everything leading to a final battle that we're pretty sure won't end in handshakes and hugs.
Consider the Chase itself. NASCAR instituted the Chase in 2004 as a form of racing playoffs, and transplanting a "postseason" into what had been a season-long race was a tricky and not-entirely-successful surgery. Indeed, the Chase has had more workovers than an aging runway model, all in the pursuit of moments like last year, when the season came down to literally the last turn on the last lap of the last race, and Tony Stewart won the championship on a one-point tiebreaker over Carl Edwards.
Sure, it's forced drama. But it's still drama. Without the Chase last year, Edwards would have locked up the season championship the week before Homestead. Love or hate the Super Bowl, you don't go into the week knowing who the NFL champion is before you play the game.
And that's the problem NASCAR faces: Sometimes, sports aren't particularly dramatic. Sometimes, one team (or one driver) absolutely throttles everyone else. Despite NASCAR's attempts to go for what it calls a "Game 7 moment," sometimes it doesn't work out that way. (This year's World Series, for instance, didn't even see a "Game 5 moment.")
So does the sport keep manipulating events to funnel everything down to a dramatic finish? Or does it allow events to play out with the chance that wins will be drama-free? Doing the former risks alienating fans who feel manipulated; doing the latter risks boring fans with follow-the-leader racing. Nice choice, huh?
This weekend, if all goes according to sporting design, Brad Keselowski will conclude his season-long run at a championship, holding off Jimmie Johnson with a triumphant run at Homestead. But don't be surprised if there's a lot more drama than we'd expect. That has a way of happening these days in NASCAR races.
-Jay Busbee will be in Homestead all weekend covering the NASCAR finale. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybusbee.-
The Top TEN Moments Of 2012
As the curtain fell on the 2012 Formula One season we were all left with a funny feeling in the pit of our stomachs as the stark realisation that the roaring of an F1 engine would not be gracing out screens until next year popped into our heads. This campaign has justifiable reason to be [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/YHxXJ1e1Njo/the-top-ten-moments-of-2012
Thursday
Chasers are dominating the points standings through the first six Chase races
Can you name the non-Chase driver who has scored the most points through the first six races of the Chase?
Last year, Kasey Kahne failed to qualify for the Chase but with the help of a win at Phoenix in the next-to-last race of the season, he ended up with the third most points of any driver over the final 10 races of the season. Safe to say this year, there's no Kasey Kahne in 2012. so if you're struggling to find the answer to the question above, don't feel bad.
If you've felt that the front of the field has been dominated by Chase drivers through Kansas, you're not wrong. In fact, in these six races, the top 1o scoring drivers are all Chasers, and if it wasn't for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s concussion, Chasers would likely be 11 for 12.
The highest scoring non-Chase driver is Kyle Busch in 12th, who has accumulated 190 points, one point behind Kevin Harvick and eight points ahead of Greg Biffle. And these six races have been much like his entire 2012, with four top seven finishes and a 28th place and a 31st place finish. Oh, and Busch is in 13th in the points standings, the highest non-Chase driver, so it's not even a big departure from the season as a whole anyway.
And Busch's situation is pretty much the story throughout the rest of the standings; drivers have generally performed to the level of their first 26 races in these last six. It's not too surprising given the (little) level of variance we've seen throughout the season in the Cup Series, and it makes Kahne's performance last year that more remarkable. This year's� most notable riser may be Regan Smith, who has scored 147 points, good enough to tie for 17th over the last six races. Smith is 23rd overall.
The points through the first six Chase races:
1. Brad Keselowski 241 (1st overall)
2. Jimmie Johnson 234 (2nd)
3. Kasey Kahne 220 (5th)
4. Clint Bowyer 219 (4th)
5. Denny Hamlin 218 (3rd)
6. Martin Truex Jr. 207 (6th)
7. Jeff Gordon 199 (8th)
8. Tony Stewart 194 (7th)
9. Matt Kenseth 192 (9th)
10. Kevin Harvick 191 (10th)
11. Kyle Busch 190 (13th)
12. Greg Biffle 182 (11th)
13. Joey Logano 179 (18th)
14. Ryan Newman 169 (15th)
15. Carl Edwards 164 (14th)
16. Paul Menard 158 (16th)
17. Aric Almirola 147 (21st)
18. Regan Smith 147 (23rd)
19. Jeff Burton 133 (19th)
20. Mark Martin 131 (25th, has run 21 races)
21. Jamie McMurray 130 (20th)
22. David Ragan 127 (27th)
23. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 125 (12th, missed two Chase races)
24. Marcos Ambrose 125 (17th)
25. Travis Kvapil 125 (29th)
26. Bobby Labonte 121 (24th)
27. Juan Montoya 120 (22nd)
28. David Gilliland 112 (28th)
29. Kurt Busch 100 (26th)
30. Landon Cassill 98 (31st)
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2013 Provisional Moto3 Line Up Announced: Exciting Bunch Of Rookies Enter The Class
The FIM today announced the provisional entry list for the Moto3 class in 2013. With 2012 champion Sandro Cortese gone, Maverick Viñales starts as favorite for the title, now delighted to be aboard a full factory KTM with JHK Laglisse. Challenging Viñales will be Jonas Folger, the surprise package of 2012 once he had switched to a Kalex KTM with Aspar, and this year's runner Luis Salom. Alex Rins will be a rider to watch, the young Spaniard having impressed in the latter part of his rookie season.
A fantastic crop of young rookies enters Moto3, most of them coming up from the Red Bull Rookies cup. Germans Florian Alt and Philipp Oettl are joined by Belgian youngster Livio Loi, all three offering an interesting prospect. From the Spanish CEV championship comes Francesco Bagnaia, hotly fancied by some observers, the young Italian slotting in alongside Romano Fenati in the Team Italia squad.
Provisional Moto3 lineup:
Bruno Senna: ?I have learned a lot and improved?
Having lost his Williams seat to Valtteri Bottas Bruno Senna says he?s happy with his 2012 season. Senna has scored points regularly this year, although he hasn?t been as fast over one lap as team mate Pastor Maldonado. ?Since the … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/11/28/bruno-senna-i-have-learned-a-lot-and-improved/
JeanDenis Deletraz Patrick Depailler Pedro Diniz Duke Dinsmore
Wednesday
Brad Keselowski captures his first Sprint Cup championship
HOMESTEAD, Fla. ? Brad Keselowski's astronomically fast rise through the ranks of NASCAR is now complete. On Sunday, Keselowski completed a triumphant season by holding off Jimmie Johnson to win his first Sprint Cup championship.
Keselowski entered the season riding momentum from last year's surprise rise into a Chase wild-card spot, but it took him exactly half a race to prove he would be a center of attention all year long. While Daytona International Speedway burned as a result of a track fire, Keselowski pulled out his phone and began tweeting�in the middle of the Daytona 500.�Within hours, he'd gained tens of thousands of followers and given NASCAR more publicity with one tiny phone than it could get with a hundred cameras.
Throughout the rest of 2012, Keselowski also proved that he could run strong at every kind of track: short, superspeedway, cookie-cutter, road. He stared down challengers on and off the track, most notably Johnson. The five-time champion appeared primed for No. 6, and in past years he could have counted on challengers wilting in the Florida heat.
Not this time. As the Chase wore on, Keselowski shed his public, freewheeling Twitter persona in favor of a relentless focus. Johnson couldn't rattle him, either on the track or in press conferences, and that dedication and mindset paid off in a championship.
"I saw this really cool video that Ray Lewis did and he said, 'Throughout my whole life I've been told that I'm not big enough, I'm not fast enough, I'm not strong enough and I don't have what it takes,' " Keselowski said after getting out of his car. "I've used that as a chip on my shoulder that's carried me through my whole career. It took 'til this year for me to realize, they're right. I'm not big enough, fast enough, strong enough. No person is. Only a team can do that. And these guys up here [pointing to his team], they make me big enough, fast enough, strong enough to do anything we want to do."
Despite Keselowski entering Sunday's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway with a commanding 20-point advantage, there was a stretch of drama. Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew chief, made a gamble on fuel that would have put the No. 48 in a position to win the Ford EcoBoost 400 and potentially wrestle away the points lead from Keselowski, who would have pit twice to Johnson's once. But on Johnson's final pit stop his crew hung a lug nut, resulting in a penalty that meant his quest for No. 6 was all but over. Moments later, when smoke filled his cockpit, it was. Johnson steered his car to the garage, his engine dead, as well as his championship run.
"Pretty heartbreaking," Johnson said moments after Keselowski crossed the finish line 15th to clinch the title. "We were doing what we needed to do, certainly�in a position to put a lot of pressure on the 2 car. But that's racing."
The victory has resonance beyond Keselowski. This marks the first-ever Cup title for legendary car owner Roger Penske, and the final (for now) championship win for Dodge, which is leaving NASCAR after this year.
Over the 10 Chase races, Keselowski averaged an impressive�6.3 finish. For comparison, last year Tony Stewart won with the same 6.3�average finish. In other words, this wasn't a Chase that Jimmie Johnson lost with a wreck last week at Phoenix or even a blown engine in South Florida; this was a Chase that Brad Keselowski won with outstanding performances in 10 straight races.
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F1 fans? videos from the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix | 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix
F1 fans’ videos from the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.
Pastor Maldonado's lap two crash, which wasn't seen on television, is among the videos shot by fans at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
F1 fans’ videos from the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix 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/2012/11/28/fans-videos-2012-brazilian-grand-prix/
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