Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/11/benson.html
Thursday
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!
More NASCAR coverage from Yahoo! Sports:
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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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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNascarInsiders/~3/GLp8xbw0wDg/
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!
More NASCAR coverage from Yahoo! Sports:
Other popular content on the Yahoo! network:
? Watch: Brad Keselowski's 'buzzed' postrace interview
? NBA Power Rankings: Clippers gain ground
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The 2013 Schedule? On Double Headers, Balance and ABC
The 2013 Indycar schedule came out on Sunday and fans have shown equals parts joy, hate and total indifference. I am positive you readers have had about enough of the scheduling talk, but I?ve got a few things to say … Continue reading 
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