Source: http://www.16thandgeorgetown.com/2012/10/tony-george-resigns-from-hulman-board.html
Monday
Button Looking Forward To Number One Status
Jenson Button has revealed that he is looking forward to being top dog at McLaren next season. The departure of Lewis Hamilton and his replacement in the shape of Sergio Perez leaves the 2009 World Champion as the most experienced driver at the team. The Briton insists that he is not nervous of the responsibility [...]
Hopefully you didn?t deal with traffic like this on Black Friday
People are crazy. And there's no better example of that craziness than Black Friday, when many of us line up at ungodly hours of the night (or ungodly days before) to get a bargain.
Heck, there was an intense scene at a Victoria's Secret in Kansas City over yoga pants. Yes. Yoga pants.
Thankfully much of the mob scenes we'll see played throughout the day don't involve people in vehicles. If they did, we'd envision many scenes like in this compilation video of Russian driving, uh, habits.
So sit back, hit play, and be glad you didn't have to deal with a dump truck barreling at you while you reached for that last flat-screen TV at 3 a.m.
(H/T to @VariousPenguins for the link)
Could Texas be where Matt Kenseth gets his third Chase win?
Last year at Texas Motor Speedway, Tony Stewart took the checkered flag for his fourth Chase win in eight races and was within three points of points leader Carl Edwards with two races to go in the season.
This year, Matt Kenseth could win Sunday's race for his third win in eight Chase races, and well, he'd be within 17 points of Jimmie Johnson and 15 of Brad Keselowski if he did and led the most laps. Of course, that is contingent on them not starting the race. So, no, Kenseth isn't likely to be within striking distance.
But Texas may be his best shot for that third win. Of all the Chasers, Kenseth has the highest average finish at 8.6 and he's got two wins and 14 top 10s in 20 races.
As for Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski, well, the tales are a tad different. Johnson clocks in at second among all Chasers with an average finish of 9.7, and he has one win and 13 top tens in 18 starts. Keselowski? He's further down the list.
Here's how the rest of the Chasers stack up:
Denny Hamlin: Hamlin has two wins in 14 Texas starts and is set up nicely to keep pace with Johnson and Keselowski. Except after what happened at Martinsville, keeping pace isn't nearly good enough. His average finish is 10.3.
Kevin Harvick: Cupcake was right around his average finish of 12.7 with a 13th place finish in last year's fall race. But because he was merely average, he lost 17 points to Stewart and 12 to Edwards and left Texas 33 points out of the points lead. And with the way that RCR has performed this year, it stands to reason Harvick will be right around that average finish again Sunday.
Tony Stewart: Both of Stewart's Texas wins have come in the fall race. His first came as a non-Chaser in 2006, when he led 278 of 334 laps. In the spring race, he was 24th, which fits the hot and cold Tony Stewart theme of 2012 just nicely if he gets a top five on Sunday. His average finish is 13.1.
Clint Bowyer: Bowyer's average finish is 13.3 with seven top 10s in 13 starts, and with the way he's rolling, he seems an almost sure bet to outperform it. But it's likely that Johnson and Keselowski will keep him company in the top 10, minimizing any potential gain.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Junior won at Texas for his first Sprint Cup Series win in 1999. Since then, he's gotten 10 top 10s in 19 more starts, including top 10s in his last three Texas starts.
Martin Truex Jr.: Other Junior started on the pole for the spring race and led 69 laps en route to a sixth place finish. In 14 Texas starts, he has seven top 10s and an average finish of 16.1.
Jeff Gordon: Gordon's lone Texas win came in the spring race of 2009, when he won for the first time since going winless in 47 races. He finished sixth in the fall last year and fourth earlier in the year in the spring. His average finish is 16.2.
Greg Biffle: The Biff is tied with Gordon at 16.2 and led the final 31 laps of the two-caution spring race for his second Texas win. And based on recent success, Biffle's average finish is misleading. Since the 2008 spring race, he hasn't finished outside the top 10.
Kasey Kahne: In his first Texas start in 2004, Kahne led 148 laps and finished second. Since then, he's led 70 laps total, and 62 of them came when he won from the pole in 2006. His average finish is 18.8, though he finished seventh in the spring and third for Red Bull in the fall.
Keselowski: Jetski's average finish is 25.2 and it wasn't helped by his 36th place finish at Texas in the spring, though that was fueled (pun intended) by fuel injection issues. His highest Texas finish is 14th, and that was in the spring of 2012. But Keselowski won at Kentucky and Chicago, finished third at Atlanta over Labor Day and was 8th and 11th at Kansas. You can throw this number out as a reliable indicator.
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:
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