Jimmie Johnson's NASCAR Dynasty May Make Him Greatest Champion

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HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Jimmie Johnson joined his team on the crowded stage, hurriedly set up on the Homestead-Miami Speedway front stretch and, with confetti flying in the air, raised NASCAR's crown jewel, the Sprint Cup Series championship trophy, for an unprecedented fifth consecutive time.

Only seven-time champions Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt have more hardware. And as the humble, low-key Californian hugged his wife, kissed his infant daughter, embraced his dad and gazed out into the crowd, Johnson was struck by something that helped him realize he had finally made it.

"There was a fan standing right up front with an 'I Hate the 48' T-shirt and he gave me the thumbs-up and said, 'Congratulations,' '' the driver of the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet recalled with a laugh. "I have people tell me they hate me, but they respect me and that's always cool. If this takes it to the next level, then right on.''

So it is for the most dominant race car driver in NASCAR history. The more he wins, the more trophies he collects, the more people clamor for someone else to step up.

How about, instead, we honor this great accomplishment and appreciate the good fortune to be witnessing sports history.

 

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Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2010/11/21/jimmie-johnsons-nascar-dynasty-may-make-him-greatest-champion/

Beppe Gabbiani Bertrand Gachot Patrick Gaillard Divina Galica

Pressure mounts on Webber most of all

Mark Webber, typically, cut to the chase when weighing up what could be the weekend of his life with a colleague.

"It's simple, mate," he said. "Put it on pole, then disappear!"

As long as Fernando Alonso, the championship leader, finishes third or worse behind the Australian in Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it would be that simple.

Webber would be champion, with no need for a last-lap shuffle from team-mate Sebastian Vettel, and Red Bull would have completed a deserved double entirely in keeping with chief technical officer Adrian Newey's magnificent RB6 design.

But little in this switchback season has been straightforward - particularly at Red Bull, where Vettel could have wrapped up the title some races ago had he had greater reliability.

Instead, he and his older team-mate find themselves chasing Alonso who, remember, was 47 points off the lead following the British Grand Prix in July.

"All the pressure is on Red Bull this weekend," according to one team manager with recent championship success. "And the biggest load is on Webber.

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"He's not a young driver and you don't get many chances like this. Vettel will have many more days to challenge for the title. The team clearly back him."

"As for Fernando, he's been there already - twice."

Webber's outburst about his team's lack of driver equality before the last race in Brazil was interpreted by many as evidence that he's feeling the heat.

And those same observers viewed his quiet, reserved performance here in front of the world's media alongside his three rivals as another display of nerves.

Contrast his demeanour with Vettel's front row smiles, they were saying last night.

Consider Alonso's matter-of-fact handling of any barbed team orders related probing and Hamilton's back row cheeriness: "The guys in front of me have everything to lose, so for me I'm going to be flat out as always."

Hamilton's role could be a significant curve-ball if he can repeat his pole-winning lap of last year. But let's stay with Webber for the moment.

A one-time Jaguar official who worked with the Australian at the team and still works within Formula 1 gave me an interesting slant on his comments in Brazil.

"Mark seems to need to rev himself up, needs to feel he's got to fight something," my source said.

"He's a strong character and a good driver but for some reason he doesn't always show it unless he's gets himself wound up."

Red Bull's Mark Webber

Will Webber keep his nerve in Abu Dhabi? Photo: Getty Images

His race-winning performance at Silverstone was a case in point. Vettel got the only new, surviving front wing off Webber's car before qualifying.

The Aussie got the hump. But he also got the victory - fast and furious to the end.
That was in the middle of his purple patch which continued until the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of August, when he was second to Hamilton.

Webber has not been on pole since then, and has not won a race since Hungary, the grand prix before Spa. He has been out-qualified by his team-mate at the last five events.

He lost valuable points by crashing in Korea, where he also lost the lead in the championship - which he had held for the longest period of anyone this season - to the driver he rates the strongest on the grid, Alonso.

So it is easy to see why so many in the F1 paddock believe Webber faces the greatest challenge of all the contenders this weekend to fulfil an ambition that's been losing momentum at the wrong time.

Essentially, it's now or never.

Even Webber admitted on Thursday that age is against him to enjoy more opportunities like this.

Indeed, one leading driver manager even suggested to me that, whatever happened this weekend, Webber's position at Red Bull was untenable.

"If he's champion, he should get out at the top. If he doesn't win the title, then why would he want to be in a team where he feels his team-mate is being treated differently?" he said.

By contrast, the Alonso Fan Club nodded sagely at the Spaniard's cool fatalism yesterday.

"I will not have anything to be disappointed about in 2010," Alonso said.

"This first year of the relationship we are fighting for the world championship in the last race against two Red Bulls who are dominating by far in terms of speed so overall I don't think it matters on Sunday."

Um, really?

Make no mistake, Alonso and Ferrari will be going all out to win the title on Sunday, however much they make out it would be an unexpected bonus.

But this chance has been as much to do with Red Bull's fallibility as Ferrari's remarkable recovery from a desperate mid-season slump which was threatening to turn the screw on team principal Stefano Domenicali.

If anybody can drive to a title-winning script on Sunday to join a select club including previous three time winners like Ayrton Senna, Niki Lauda and Sir Jackie Stewart, it is Alonso.

He is the man in front, with the experience of his 2005 and 2006 triumphs, seemingly able to work out the points as effortlessly as the strategy.

Above all, he knows that his rivals all have to beat him on the track to have a chance of the 2010 championship, whereas he could do the job even if he failed to finish through a mistake or a breakdown.

Vettel, who must have nightmares about that engine failure when leading in Korea, has appeared like a man who will be driving more in hope than expectation of coming first or second to have any chance of becoming F1's youngest champion.

The prospect of waving through Webber has not fazed him because both of them know their first priority is getting ahead, and staying ahead of Alonso before any switch comes into the equation.

And that is where Lewis Hamilton fits in.

He accepts that he is clearly the outsider of the four contenders; 24 points off the lead, he's all but written off his chances

But if the McLaren performs like last year - extra straight-line speed from the F-duct instead of last year's Kers power boost - on Abu Dhabi's two big straights, the 2008 champion could be the joker in the championship pack.

Hamilton gave a hint of what might be in the offing with his pace in second practice, especially in the final sector where he was supreme.

Another McLaren pole position backed up by race reliability, and those carefully prepared championship permutations at Red Bull and Ferrari will be crucial props in a juggling act which could keep us guessing until the final lap of the final race of this momentous season.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jonathanlegard/2010/11/webber-feeling-the-pressure.html

Juan Jover Oswald Karch Narain Karthikeyan Ukyo Katayama

Vettel keeps cool to fulfil destiny

Sebastian Vettel was choking back tears as he tried to respond to his team's congratulations after he won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to clinch an unlikely first world drivers' title. They were tears of disbelief as much as joy.

The German and his Red Bull car have been the fastest combination on the Formula 1 grid all year but a mixture of driver errors, mechanical failures and pure bad luck had meant that Vettel - who replaces Lewis Hamilton as the youngest world champion in history - had never led the title chase heading into the final race of the season.

Starting from pole position but 15 points adrift of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, who was directly behind him on the grid in third place, the title looked a long way away for the 23-year-old.

But Vettel did everything he needed to do by driving a race of cool maturity as things began to unravel for Alonso and Ferrari almost from the start.

A lost place to Jenson Button off the line was a minor inconvenience for the Spaniard, but the title was lost with a catastrophic strategic call to mirror the decision of another championship protagonist, Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber, to stop early for fresh tyres.

It put Alonso back in the pack of midfield runners, breaking the cardinal rule of all F1 strategy moves - keep track position and if you don't make sure you have clear air in which to run at your maximum pace. Stuck behind Renault's Vitaly Petrov, Alonso had neither, and the Ferrari driver was at the mercy of Vettel's result.

Vettel did what he has proved more than capable of all year - made no mistakes when running in the lead, reeling off the laps to the chequered flag.

It was an incredible final twist to end an astonishing season, one that will go down as one of the greatest in F1 history.

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It was the first time four drivers had ever gone into the final race all with a chance of the title - and a fifth, Button, was only knocked out of the reckoning seven days ago in Brazil.

What has made 2010 so compelling was to have so many superb drivers competing in cars that were relatively evenly matched.

For Alonso, Hamilton and Button, though, the season was always a rear-guard battle fighting a faster car in the Red Bull, and they were able to compete only because of the mistakes made by that team and both their drivers.

For all Vettel's stunning qualifying pace and coolness when leading, he is less convincing when not in first place.

He crashed into Webber while trying to pass him for the lead in Turkey, got a puncture at the start in Silverstone after making an ill-advised decision to sit it out around the outside of Webber at the first corner, and inexplicably rammed into Button after losing control behind him in Belgium.

His talent may still have some rough edges, but it is of the highest quality, and he has made a convincing case this season that he can now be considered in the same breath as F1's two benchmarks - Alonso and Hamilton.

Vettel shot to prominence in F1 with his performances for Red Bull feeder team Toro Rosso in 2008, culminating with a brilliant victory in the wet at the Italian Grand Prix.

Back then, his image was all positive. He was young, fast, approachable and had a sense of humour - he was that most unlikely thing, an Anglophile German who liked The Beatles and Fawlty Towers.

Since then, he has displayed a darker side to his character, and the steeliness and ruthlessness all great F1 champions need has been fully in evidence this season as he and Webber have gone toe-to-toe at Red Bull and sparks flew.

It was obvious Vettel was going to be the man to beat this season from the moment he took pole for the first race of the season in Bahrain and led until a spark plug failure handed victory to Alonso.

Vettel lost another victory two weeks later in Australia thanks to a wheel-nut failure and had he won those two races perhaps the pressure would have been off and he would have led comfortably throughout the season.

Thankfully, for the sake of the championship battle, that is not what happened.

Two superb wet-weather wins for Button in the space of three races put him in the lead; Webber took over after dominating in Spain and Monaco; Hamilton took his place at the top after back-to-back wins in Turkey and Canada; Webber took it back; and then it was Alonso's turn after a quite superb late-season run of form.

As Vettel put it on Sunday: "All of us could write a book about races we should have finished in higher positions. We have all had so many ups and downs. It has been a tough season mentally to ignore what people were saying and always get your own thing done."

It has been an intensely competitive year and the pressure on everyone was huge throughout, but Vettel and Red Bull always had the consoling thought that they were the fastest thing on the grid.

Still, though, it had looked as if the drivers' title was going to slip through their fingers. And what appeared as if it was going to be the decisive turning point of the season occurred at the Korean Grand Prix two races ago, when Vettel - under intense pressure from Alonso - suffered an engine failure.

That put Alonso 11 points clear of Webber, and the manic cackle he gave over the radio at the end of the race - a mixture of joy, surprise and disbelief - summed up everything about the Spaniard's unlikely fightback from being 47 points off the championship lead after the British Grand Prix.

In Abu Dhabi, though, Ferrari again found themselves at the mercy of a faster car. Caught between deciding whether to cover Webber's early stop and Vettel disappearing up the road, Alonso's engineers chose what in hindsight was the wrong option. As Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey said after the race, had Alonso stayed out, he would probably have finished fourth. Which would have made him world champion.

Alonso had been adamant before the race that this would have been a great season for him no matter what happened in the championship, and although clearly gutted he stuck to that line after the race.

"If we didn't stop, Webber would probably overtake us; if we stop, we let (Nico) Rosberg and Petrov overtake us," he said. "Very difficult call.

"Next year we try again. But it was [a] very good [season] for me, especially after two years of some difficulties, coming back to winning races, fighting for the championship in the last races.

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"I won five races, I overtook in victories Niki Lauda, Juan Manuel Fangio, some great names, and I'm sure with this team it is very possible to fight for championships in the future, so I am happy."

Forget all the nonsense about team orders at the German Grand Prix, Alonso would have been a fully deserving world champion. In fact, no matter who won it there wasn't going to be a bad one in 2010 and in Vettel there can be no doubt that the sport has a good one.

This is a man who is going to be at the heart of F1 for years to come. There will be many more victories, probably many more titles. And at 23, who knows, even his friend Michael Schumacher's record of seven titles and 91 victories might be vulnerable.

To get there, though, he will have to beat the likes of Alonso and Hamilton, who are not going anywhere in a hurry, as well as Renault's Robert Kubica, a man who this year convinced even his doubters that he will be a major force once he gets his hands on a competitive car.

In 2011, the same top drivers will be with the same teams, and there is every reason to believe it could be just as good as 2010, perhaps even better. Bring it on.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/11/vettel_keeps_cool_to_fulfil_de.html

Masahiro Hasemi Naoki Hattori Paul Hawkins Mike Hawthorn

What Does Dale Earnhardt Jr. Bring To Nascar Besides Racing?

There is no question that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is one of the top racers in Nascar. He has built up a reputable image through fine racing and countless wins. However, racing is not the only thing this incredible person brings to the sport.

As many are well aware of, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a third generation driver in a family that has been connected to the sport of stock car racing for years. He has a flare of charisma, originality, and character that have propelled him to become one of the most popular figures in sports today. Five times Nascar fans have selected him as the winner of the most popular driver award. Thousands of fans line up at every track at his merchandise trailer just to get something with his name on it. It is hard to see where he has time to meet with so many of his fans but he does. That is what makes him so popular.

His appeal certainly branches outside of just Nascar fans though. He has appeared many times on Harris Interactive’s annual polling for America’s Top 10 favorite athletes. This has put him in the company of such athletes as Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter, and Tiger Woods. In 2002, Dale was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Eligible Bachelors.

Outside of racing, he has become a role model for young ones with his business savvy as well. He has pursued the role of team owner and businessman while ascending in this too. In 2002 JR Motor sports consisted of just six employees and a street-stocked camaro was the only race car. Today, the company encompasses over 100 employees and a plethora of different vehicles that compete in the Nascar Racing Nationwide series.

If that were not enough, he has appeared on over 150 magazine covers and has been featured in high profiled publications such as Rolling Stones, GQ, Men’s Journal, Sports Illustrated and People Magazine. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has also made guest appearances on 60 minutes, the Late Show with David Letterman, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Larry King Live and many more talk shows. He has also appeared in numerous commercials for his sponsors.

But that was just not enough for this Nascar racing star either. He has played cameo roles in Talladega Nights and Cars, and was the subject of an episode of MTV’s Diary. To further add to his resume, in 2001 he became a best-selling author with Driver 8. This is a documentation of his rookie season in the Nascar Sprint Cup Series.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has done tremendous things for the sport of Nascar. Through his countless victories and ambitious personality, he has become a true role model for people all over the world. He has shown that there is life outside of sports with cameos and his documentary book and has given kids a reason to strive for their goals. There really is no question why he is one of America’s Top 10 favorite athletes.

Come read more Nascar related articles at http://nascarracing4you.com. You can check out the Nascar schedule, standings, and results. Also, there is a wide selection of Nascar merchandise and memorabilia at the Nascar Store.

Article Source: What Does Dale Earnhardt Jr. Bring To Nascar Besides Racing?

Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/235193/what-does-dale-earnhardt-jr-bring-to-nascar-besides-racing

Richard Allen Craven Kerry Dale Earnhardt Ralph Dale Earnhardt Sr Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr

WRC: Ireland pushes for WRC return

Ireland pushes for WRC return By David Evans Wednesday, December 15th 2010, 10:24 GMT Ireland's chances of returning to the World Rally Championship calendar have improved in the wake of a positive meeting between FIA vice-president Mohammed ben Sulayem and Irish senator Marc MacSharry. Rally Ireland has not been included in the WRC since 2009 and it will not run next year Related posts:
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  2. IRC: Ireland gets IRC supporter event slot Ireland gets IRC supporter event slot In association with Tuesday,...
  3. WRC: Sulayem backs Abu Dhabi WRC bid Sulayem backs Abu Dhabi WRC bid By David Evans Wednesday,...
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Source: http://doxcar.com/wrc-ireland-pushes-for-wrc-return/

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Richard Petty and Investors Take Control of RPM From George Gillett Jr.

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CONCORD, N.C. (AP) -- Richard Petty will once again run his race team and participate in day-to-day operations as chairman of the new ownership group that was announced Monday.

The assets of Richard Petty Motorsports have been sold from George Gillett Jr. to an investment group that consists of Petty, Medallion Financial Corp. and DGP Investments.

"Today is a great day for me, my family, our fans and our wonderful sponsors," Petty said in a statement that listed 10 partners that "have supported me through thick and thin and I thank them from the bottom of my heart."

RPM will field cars for AJ Allmendinger and Marcos Ambrose in 2011.

The transfer of assets has been in the works for several weeks because of Gillett's ongoing financial problems. Debt-laden English soccer club Liverpool recently was sold despite the objection of Gillett and business partner Tom Hicks. And a U.S. hedge fund is suing Gillett over what the firm says is more than $117 million in debt he racked up investing in Liverpool.

 

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Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2010/11/29/richard-petty-and-investors-take-control-of-rpm-from-george-gill/

Mike Hawthorn Boy Hayje Willi Heeks Nick Heidfeld

NASCAR Tickets - NASCAR Continues To Thrive

Whoever thought that the current economic turmoil would leave the grandstands empty at sporting events didn't consider NASCAR's dedicated fan base. Stock car racing is one of America's favorite pastimes, and enthusiasts of the racing league have recently been proving their dedication to the sport, as NASCAR tickets have been selling out even despite the hard times during this recession. The gigantic amount of support from NASCAR fans has been overwhelming, and it was proven once again last weekend at the Bristol Motor Speedway, when a sold-out crowd came down to the grandstands to cheer on their favorite NASCAR drivers at the Food City 500.

Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee is one of stock car racing's most coveted racetracks, and last week's Food City 500 set a track record, but it wasn't the racecar drivers breaking precedents. For the 54th consecutive event in a row, the half-mile speedway sold out tickets to the track for a race, filling up all 160,000 seats in the stadium with racing enthusiasts set to cheer on their favorite NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competitors like Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth. While the Bristol Motor Speedway has sold out tickets to the Food City 500 every year since 1982, this year the track and its employees had to work extra hard to turn out tickets to fans, as several corporate sponsors had handed their tickets back in during this economic recession. Bristol nonetheless accomplished this task, letting the tradition live on this year at the Tennessee track. The Food City 500 was also the second race of this NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season to sell out, following in the footsteps of the season opener at the Daytona 500.

At last weekend's Food City 500 race, the sold-out crowd at Bristol Motor Speedway watched anxiously as Kyle Busch zoomed his way to another Cup Series victory, yanking his second win of the season (after Las Vegas earlier this month) and also his second career win at what is dubbed "the world's fastest half-mile." Busch held off Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne (respectively) to whiz down Victory Lane in first place, using all the help he could get from his pit crew to propel him to the top of the NASCAR race. Busch almost lost his race-leading edge after a late pit stop in last week's Food City race, but after communicating with his pit crew, Busch said that, "I told the ladies to man up, and they got it done on the next stop. It is pretty awesome to win here. I should have won last fall here. We've had great cars, we just keep ruining it on pit road."

Kyle Busch now sits in fourth place overall in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, loosening the grip Jeff Gordon has over the league in points and climbing three spots from the last race. Gordon is still in first place in standings after finishing fourth at Bristol, sitting pretty with 794 total points while Kurt Busch has 718, Clint Bowyer has 715, Kyle Busch has 709 and Carl Edwards has 665. It's still anyone's game, however, so get tickets to a NASCAR race online and come out to the track to watch these phenomenal drivers speed circles around their competitors during the rest of the 2009 racing season!

This article is sponsored by StubHub. StubHub is a leader in the business of selling NASCAR tickets, sports tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets and special events tickets.

Article Source: NASCAR Tickets - NASCAR Continues To Thrive

Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/251701/nascar-tickets-nascar-continues-to-thrive

BigSpot com Toyota Carl Long Willie Allen Cash America Chevrolet

NASCAR Tracks - The Texas Motor Speedway

Texas Motor Speedway is the second largest sports facility in America and it plays host to professional auto racing, concerts and giant auto shows. Take a tour of the Speedway and get a birds-eye view of more than 150,000 seats and 1,000 acres that make up the Speedway. Texas Motor Speedway represents the pinnacle of luxury for fans of auto racing, as the facility features 194 sky box VIP suites. Order your tickets today. Texas Motor Speedway offers amenities to make every fan comfortable while they watch in awe as 43 Nextel Cup stock cars roar around the Texas track. There is no better way to spend an afternoon than with NASCAR tickets for the whole family.

Texas Motor Speedway also has a special ticket for $79 for fans who want to be close to the pre-race activities. The 7-Eleven Pre-Race ticket provides access to the infield and pre-race show stage area, a prime spot for viewing the entertainment as well as pre-race driver introductions. Texas Motor Speedway has begun to be a fast track and is becoming more like Atlanta! Texas Motor Speedway remains a favorite of racing fans because it is still managed by the legendary racing promoter Eddie Gossage. Gossage has managed TMS since it was built in 1996.

The Texas Motor Speedway also offers fans access to pit road where you can glimpse the behind-the-scenes workings of a pit crew. The Texas Motor Speedway is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long: The front stretch is 2,250 feet (686 m) long, and the back stretch is 1,330 feet (405 m) long. At 230 mph (337 f/s), the drivers take about 6.5 seconds to go down the front stretch, and then they are slammed by almost 5 Gs of force for the next 6.5 seconds as they go around the turn.

The Texas Motor Speedway's track has longer turns with higher banks at each corner than the Indianapolis 500 track. This affects the G-forces on the driver and how long they are acting on them. The Texas Motor Speedway is a 1.5 mile obstacle that offers many of the same challenges as Lowes Motor Speedway. Banked turns and a long straightaway on the back half offer drivers the chance to let loose. The Texas Motor Speedway ticket office will be open from 9:03 a.m. Sunday and then traditional weekday hours from 9 a.m.

The Texas Motor Speedway is a 1.5 mile obstacle that offers many of the same challenges as Lowes Motor Speedway. Banked turns and a long straightaway on the back half offer drivers the chance to let loose. The Texas Motor Speedway's track has longer turns with higher banks at each corner than the Indianapolis 500 track. This affects the G-forces on the driver and how long they are acting on them. The Texas Motor Speedway, that was designed very similar to the Atlanta Speedway, did have faster times during 2004 to 2005, but after its surface was worn, the higher speeds returned to Atlanta. Tracks such as Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway did once have faster lap times, averaging about 322 kilometers an hour, but NASCAR mandated restrictor plates for these tracks, making the average speed approximately 306 kilometers an hour.

The Texas Motor Speedway is a popular venue for concerts and live performances. The biggest names in entertainment perform at the Texas Motor Speedway year round.

For NASCAR Merchandise, Up to the minute News, and everything NASCAR including RaceCar jackets or Nascar Racing Car Jackets we have them at the best prices everyday!

Article Source: NASCAR Tracks - The Texas Motor Speedway

Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/189628/nascar-tracks-the-texas-motor-speedway

Brad Keselowski Dale Earnhardt Jr Kasey Kahne Budweiser Ford

Making the most of the F1 season

I find it impossible to think that this is it. I said to Harriet, as I packed my bag for the final race of this year, that 2010 has been the fastest 12 months of my life.

I can vividly remember eating pizza in a small restaurant in Richmond back in March as we both apprehensively considered the next nine months of almost constant travel.

In the blink of an eye, it's almost over.

Although I've visited many of the same places, same hotels, even the very same hotel room at times, this year has been an incredibly different journey to the one I took in 2009.

I'll never, ever forget the nerves in the Melbourne pit-lane as F1 returned to the BBC after a long absence almost two years ago. And while the nerves have settled down, the pressure never has.

In 2009, I went into every race having never been there before, feeling anxious, aware I was a total newcomer, looking to please everyone. At the end of what was the most incredible year of my life, I realised that I hadn't actually taken time to step back and enjoy it. I was determined to put that right in 2010.

I think I've managed to do that but, as I've tried to take a step back and be objective about this season, remember the sights and the sounds of a championship year, I wonder if the same can be said of the men who are at the very centre of the storm... the championship contenders.

One of my mottos in life is "savour it". I said it to my wife on our wedding day, to my sister when her first child was born and to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner after last weekend's constructors' title triumph.

As life zips past at an incredible rate and the smallest things become the biggest issues, savouring what is around us is often the last thing we think of doing.

Last weekend in Brazil, for example, David Coulthard turned to me and said: "You'll never see a driver celebrate a win for as long as a team member."

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Zoom in and fly around the Abu Dhabi track
He was referring to the psyche of a driver, the complex psychological make-up that inspires the chosen few to constantly put their neck on the line in pursuit of perfection.

After he picked up pole position last weekend, I asked Nico Hulkenberg what had crossed his mind following the achievement.

"Oh no, two press conferences and then more interviews," was his answer.

He didn't allow himself the indulgence of reflecting on the hard times when an F1 pole was beyond his wildest dreams, or how his family would be celebrating back in Germany. Nope, it was all about what was to come.

F1 doesn't do the present very well. It's all about the next race, the next upgrade, the next season. The constant pursuit of perfection demands that. Live in the now for a fraction of a second and, in this world, it instantly becomes the past.

In this year, of all years, it's been important to take stock of what we are witnessing, to be aware that it may be very many seasons before we encounter another similarly close title battle. And it all comes down to this weekend's final race.

For four of the drivers, there is no looking beyond this weekend. Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton know their entire season - every lap of every track - has distilled to this... one race with everything on the line.

My advice? Tune in, take the phone off the hook and, most of all, savour it. I know I will.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is live on BBC1 (from 1210 GMT) and the BBC Sport website (UK users only) on Sunday with the race starting at 1300 GMT.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jakehumphrey/2010/11/making_the_most_of_the_f1_seas.html

Joe James John James Jean Pierre Jarier Max Jean

NASCAR Tickets - NASCAR Makes Racing Debut on Wii

It doesn't matter what time of the year it is for NASCAR fans who have invested in the Nintendo Wii, as racing enthusiasts can now watch their favorite drivers storm the racetrack even outside of racing season. NASCAR's fiercest competitors have been transformed into video game characters in the newest Wii arrival called "NASCAR Kart Racing," allowing racing fans to jump into the driver's seat to maneuver around the league's several tracks such as the Talladega Superspeedway and Daytona International. The NASCAR Kart Racing Nintendo game has been in the works for several months and was finally released in the middle of February 2009, granting racing fans an all-access pass both in and out of racing season.

While NASCAR Kart Racing is highly comparable to the dominating Mario Kart Nintendo game of a similar caliber, this virtual automotive delight adds a personal touch to the highly-respected sport of racing, even featuring characters named and resembling 14 drivers, including Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Elliott Sadler and Tony Stewart, with two unlockable mystery drivers including racing legends Richard Petty and Joey Logano. Just like in real life, these characters each have different attributes and strengths that affect how they run races, making this Wii game even more exciting for racing fans. 10 other non-NASCAR drivers called "Outsiders" are also available options for choosing drivers in the Kart Racing game.

In NASCAR's newest Wii endeavor, players select a driver and also choose a teammate, building up added speed bonuses for staying close to teammates in the various races at several different racetracks across the country. NASCAR Kart Racing isn't all about going fast and turning left, however, like it is for these real racecar drivers, as in the Wii game there are several racetracks with varying obstacles blowing through the screen. Just like in Mario Kart, Kart Racing's competitors try to outspeed each other in some high-flying racing action on the track, zooming past dizzying landscapes, rocky cliffs, falling boulders and other hazards on their way to victory.

NASCAR Kart Racing is rated E (for Everyone) by the ESRB and has been given the description "Cartoon Mischief," letting all racing fans with a Nintendo Wii get a slice of the action. The Wii program also offers myriad options when it comes to controls, as the game is drivable by Wii remote, remote and nunchuck, classic controller or Gamecube controller.

While racing enthusiasts are now getting their kicks from the NASCAR Kart Racing Nintendo Wii game via living room televisions and Wii remotes, die-hard racing fans are still lining up to get NASCAR tickets to see Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Co. kick up dust live from racetracks across the country. Racing season is alive and well, so scour the web for tickets to a race and head down to the track to watch everyone's favorite icons zoom past the checkered flag on their way to Victory Lane!

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Willie Allen Derrike Cope Kevin Harvick Brad Keselowski