Source: http://www.16thandgeorgetown.com/2012/08/foyt-to-field-austin-in-500.html
Christian Danner Jorge Daponte Anthony Davidson Jimmy Davies
Saturday
Should Tony Stewart take Roger Penske?s offer of an Indy 500 ride?
During his speech at Friday night's Sprint Cup Series banquet Roger Penske offered Tony Stewart a ride in a Penske IndyCar for the Indianapolis 500.
It was a joke.
Right?
Wrong, apparently. When asked after the banquet about his line, Penske didn't exactly back away or laugh it off.
''If he wants to do the double, I'd put him in it,'' Penske said. ''We've talked about it before, I guess I made it official tonight.''
Well holy crap.
Stewart moved over from the IndyCar Series to NASCAR full time in 1999 and last ran the Indianapolis 500/Coca-Cola 600 Memorial Day weekend double in 2001. That year, he finished 6th in the 500 for Chip Ganassi and then third in the 600 for Joe Gibbs Racing, his only Sprint Cup Series team until he got an ownership stake in Stewart-Haas Racing and started driving for his team in 2009.
He has sworn off the double (NASCAR chatters, insert your Whopper jokes here) since then. But will Penske's public proclamation sway him? He's won 15 Indianapolis 500s, you know.
If a driver was going to do the Indy/Charlotte double in the near future, the favorite to do so looked like it would be Danica Patrick, who was entertaining the thought as recently as this summer. But with her move to the Sprint Cup Series full-time in 2013, wiser heads prevailed and those plans have been scuttled, for now at least.
However, should her NASCAR owner do it? Stewart has never won the crown jewel of IndyCar racing ? his best finish is a 5th with 64 laps led in 1997. He's also never won the Daytona 500, going 0-14.
So how about this proposal: if Stewart wins the 2013 Daytona 500, he takes Penske's offer. Only Mario Andretti and AJ Foyt (who Stewart chose his car number at SHR after) have won both races. Stewart would have the opportunity to be the first driver to win both in the same season, and if he prevents his 0-fer streak from getting one closer to Dale Earnhardt's in Daytona, why shouldn't he go for it in Indianapolis?
Of course, there are many logistics to sort out if Stewart was to take Penske up on his offer; namely sponsor conflicts (Mobil 1 vs. Shell Pennzoil) and the time juggling that would be required to maintain a regular Sprint Cup Series focus while getting in as much seat time as possible in Indianapolis.
After all, Indianapolis is the race that Stewart grew up attending and dreaming about. And it's a track that, like Daytona, has teased him with strong performances. With Daytona knocked off the bucket list, only Indy would remain unchecked. It'd be too tantalizing to pass up.
NASCAR tracks get part of a nice little $70 million perk in the fiscal cliff deal [UPDATED]
With minutes to spare, the president and Congress pulled America away from the fiscal cliff, a deal reached amid partisan posturing and acrimony, which ... OK, look, I know you didn't come here for any kind of political nonsense, so let's get to it: the fiscal cliff deal, which saves most of us some money but costs most drivers a lot more, has buried within its dank recesses a nice little perk for many of your favorite race tracks.
Here's the deal: NASCAR tracks stand to benefit from an estimated $70 million in tax credits? due to an extension included in the fiscal cliff deal. [Note: An earlier version of this article characterized the tax credit in an unclear fashion.]
The so-called "NASCAR tax credit" allows "certain motorsports racing track facilities" (not just NASCAR ones) to write off their costs over just seven years, rather than the usual 15 to 39 years. Compacting the writeoff period allows the tracks to pay fewer taxes over that time. The tax credit is located under section 168(i)(15) of the federal tax code, but you already knew that.
If you have eaten lately, you might not want to click this link ? it's a rundown of every special interest that gained in the fiscal cliff deal. Railroads, electric motorcycle makers, Hollywood, and rum producers were among the others who gained from the fiscal cliff deal.
First track to do a "Thanks for not pushing us over the fiscal cliff!" ticket promotion wins ... well, nothing, because they're already saving tax money. But they should do it anyway.
UPDATE: International Speedway Corporation's Charles Talbert, Senior Director for Investor and Corporate Communications, offered the following statement to Yahoo! Sports in response to this article:
"I wanted to follow up on your article you posted [Wednesday] regarding the extension of 7-year recovery period for motorsports entertainment complexes, which has been unfairly referenced as the 'NASCAR tax credit.'� Your statement, ??NASCAR tracks will hang onto $70 mil that otherwise would have ended up in the U.S. Treasury?? is misleading. �The provision you reference is not a tax break and does not result in ISC or other track owners paying less tax. �Rather it simply preserves the same tax treatment the industry has used for decades.
"I imagine Austin?s Circuit of the Americas F1 motorsports complex and the hundreds of millions of dollars invested will benefit from the extension as will the tracks that host IndyCar, NHRA, ARCA and the nearly 1000 other smaller tracks that promote motorsports.� �International Speedway Corporation never sought any tax treatment that was different from the treatment the industry has used since its inception. �We are an industry that regularly buys and replaces real property and regularly pays corporate taxes.� We also use private money to finance our operations, choosing not to ask locals or business travelers to pay our freight.� But we can't abide the IRS changing the way our business operates when Congress never acted to allow it. �The provision Congress enacted simply continued current practice. �This topic will come up again and I would be open to speaking with you on the issues. �The misreporting on this issue is rampant, and not at all consistent with the facts."
UPDATE 2: Thanks for the love, Jalopnik.
-Follow Jay Busbee on Twitter at @jaybusbee.-
Colin Chapman Dave Charlton Pedro Matos Chaves Bill Cheesbourg
2012 season in the rear view: Juan Pablo Montoya
Vitals: 22nd in the points standings. 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 2 top 10s. 5 DNFs.
Moment to remember: Oh, gee, what could it be?
Even if Juan Pablo Montoya won the 2012 Sprint Cup Series title, nothing was going to top the jet dryer incident at Daytona in February. Nothing. And Montoya obviously didn't win the championship, so nothing was really a close second either.
So when it comes to performance on the box score (the blaze was performance art at its finest), the highlight of Montoya's season are the back-to-back poles that he scored at Pocono at Watkins Glen in August. But, as Montoya's 2012 tended to go, they lead us directly into the next section.
Moment to forget: Those two poles could have been a great launching point for Montoya to grab a win, jump into the top 20 and suddenly be in the discussion for a Chase wild card berth over the final three races of the regular season. But instead, Montoya finished 20th at Pocono and then 33rd at Watkins Glen after issues with his left front tire. And it wasn't like Montoya was at the front for very long in each of those races. He led a combined eight laps.
The wrap: Chip Ganassi made some personnel switches at Earnhardt Ganassi before the season, including putting Chris Heroy atop Montoya's pit box for the season, and hinted that there could be more on the way if the team's performance didn't pick up. And it didn't. Teammate Jamie McMurray was just one spot ahead of Montoya in the standings.
The team announced that it would field Hendrick engines next year, switching from Earnhardt-Childress Racing engines. Will the powerplant swap be a catalyst for an uptick in performance in 2013? Or is there more to Earnhardt-Ganassi's struggles?
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Friday
Massa Targeting Title Bid
Ferrari?s Felipe Massa believes that he can fight for the 2013 Drivers? World Championship. The Brazilian renewed his deal with the team despite enduring a tough 2012 campaign. He finished the season strongly, and believes that he can carry this momentum into 2013 and challenge the likes of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel: “I want [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/fSk6c6a6Ty0/massa-targeting-title-bid
2012 season in the rear view: David Gilliland
Vitals: 30th in the points standings. 0 wins, 0 top fives, 0 top 10s. 4 DNFs.
Moment to remember: David Gilliland's strength has been at restrictor plate tracks -- he finished third in the 2011 Daytona 500 and in the tandem-drafting era was Tony Stewart's best buddy -- so it's appropriate that the two best finishes of his season where at Talladega. He finished 13th there in the spring and 15th in the fall.
Moment to forget: Gilliland was involved in the early crash at Dover in June that included 13 cars and red-flagged the race. He finished 40th.
The wrap: No offense to Gilliland, but his 2012 season was quite unremarkable. He started every race, completing 91 percent of the season's laps and finishing on the lead lap eight times, including a stretch of five straight races in the summer. His average finish was also six spots higher than his average start. However, his average 2012 starting position was 33.5.
The addition of Penske to the Ford camp in 2013 could be a help or a hinderance to Front Row. On one hand, it's more data for Ford to gather for research and development. On the other, it knocks Front Row down the blue oval pecking order. If that has any effects, it could mitigate any potential steps forward for the team and Gilliland in 2013.
Thursday
Andy Ahern is an entrepreneur par excellence
Andy Ahern has been at the helm in the transportations and trucking logistics sector since the day he went public with Ahern and Associates in 1987. Before Andy established his own truck transportation and logistics consultancy, he had garnered sufficient experience about trucking transportation. He had worked in senior positions in many companies. Even the [...]
Source: http://www.autocarblog.co.uk/373-andy-ahern-is-an-entrepreneur-par-excellence.html
Fernando and Felipe look ahead
Today in Madonna di Campliglio the two Ferrari race drivers had their chance to talk to the media about their seasons in 2012 and their hopes for the future. Both flew in from Brazil where at the weekend they were both racing in Massa?s Desafio Internacional das Estrelas charity karting event. Neither did very well, [...]
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/fernando-and-felipe-look-ahead/
Carmelo Ezpeleta: "MotoGP And WSBK Will Remain Separate Series"
One of the greatest fears which World Superbike fans expressed when it was announced last year that control of WSBK would fall under the responsibility of Dorna was that WSBK would either be killed off as a series, or absorbed into MotoGP as a glorified support class. The continued existence of two motorcycle road racing world championship seemed in serious doubt; in dire economic times, one of the two must give. And with Dorna having invested so much in making MotoGP the dominant championship, WSBK fans feared, it would be World Superbikes that suffers.
That fear, at least, is groundless. Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta told German-language publication Speedweek that he could not conceive of the two series being run at the same events. There would always be come circuits and some countries that would prefer one series to the other, Ezpeleta explained to Speedweek. "We will be keeping the two series separate, and supporting them both," Ezpeleta said.
Source:
Pedro Matos Chaves Bill Cheesbourg Eddie Cheever Andrea Chiesa
Wednesday
2012 season in the rear view: Kasey Kahne
Vitals: 4th in the points standings. 2 wins, 12 top 5s, 19 top 10s. 4 DNFs.
Moment to remember: Kasey Kahne's first win with Hendrick Motorsports came at Charlotte in May in the Coca-Cola 600, but his win at New Hampshire in June was more significant. Kahne has always been very, very good at Charlotte, but not so much at Loudon, where he hadn't won and even after the victory, sports an average finish of 16.2.
In the Lenox Tools 301, Kahne took the lead for the first time on lap 236 under caution and held on the rest of the way.
Moment to forget: Man, Kahne's Hendrick tenure got off to an inauspicious start in the results column.
He came to Hendrick with long-time crew chief Kenny Francis, and they had speed to start the season -- not counting Daytona, the first time that Kahne started outside the top 10 was Dover in the 13th race of the season. But the results didn't show it, like when he started on the pole at Martinsville and lost an engine and finished 38th. At that point, he was 31st in the points standings.
The wrap: Just like teammate Jeff Gordon, Kahne did an admirable job digging himself out of an early points hole. After making a strong comeback from being 31st after Martinsville, consecutive crashes at Pocono and Michigan knocked him back to 16th in the points standings.
But also like Gordon, the problems that Kahne suffered from weren't from a lack of speed and Kahne safely made it in the Chase via the first Wild Card spot. He was a contender for the Chase title too, that is until a 25th place finish at Texas in the third-to-last race of the season doomed his chances.
Senna: Still A Chance Of 2013 F1 Seat
Bruno Senna says his future is still unclear, but there is a chance of an F1 return in 2013. The Brazilian was axed by Williams at the end of last season in favour of reserve driver Valtteri Bottas. Although there are only positions available at Caterham and Force India, Senna revealed that he is hopeful [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/akA0UBsUXZk/senna-still-a-chance-of-2013-f1-seat
Kimi Raikkonen ran into a dead end during the Brazilian Grand Prix
When we last saw fabled driver Kimi Raikkonen around these parts, he was getting his first F1 win since returning to the series by winning at Abu Dhabi.
During Sunday's rainy F1 finale at Brazil, Raikkonen was exporing new territory. And it didn't work out so well.
After sliding off-track in a corner, Raikkonen saw an opening in the wall beyond the track and pointed his car towards it. The only problem was that the access road didn't go anywhere. After gunning it up a hill, Raikkonen was forced to turn around and re-enter the circuit through the entrance he came in.
But the awesomeness doesn't end there. Instead of taking the access road back towards the track ? that would have been the long way around, after all ? Raikkonen veered his car to the right through the grass and rejoined the race. He finished 10th.
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HRC Press Release: Shuhei Nakamoto Looks Back At 2012, And Forward To 2013
With the kickoff to the 2013 season growing ever closer, those involved in motorcycle racing are starting to look back at 2012 and look ahead to 2013. After yesterday's review from Bridgestone, Honda are the next organization to issue a press release interview with a senior management figure. The press release interview with HRC Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto makes for fascinating reading, providing an insight into the 2012 season and expectations of 2013.
The interview covers the preparations for the switch to 1000cc, and the confidence with which HRC went into the new era. However, Honda soon ran into trouble, with the increase in the minimum weight added in December 2011, and the revised construction of Bridgestone tires supplied for the 2012 season, both the softer rear tire and the revised front tire (for additional detail into why the weight increase was announced so late, see the editor's note below the interview). Nakamoto provides some interesting details on how HRC dealt with the extra weight and the revised tires, revealing that it cost them half a season to solve the problems they had created. The HRC boss also explains why he believes that having multiple tire manufacturers is a better solution for all involved, creating more competition and allowing multiple solutions for different bikes. Nakamoto states that he believes this is one of the reasons why MotoGP racing has become so predictable.
Nakamoto also has very high praise for both Casey Stoner and Marc Marquez, the man brought in to replace him. His compliments on Marquez approach and talent are telling, Nakamoto revealing that at the HRC test in Sepang, Marquez was already lapping at the same pace that Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner were running. Nakamoto also provides insight into why he will miss Casey Stoner, and exactly how important the Australian was to Honda's racing program. Nakamoto rates Stoner above any other rider in the MotoGP paddock.
Year:
2013
Why The Dodge Deal Isn?t Done Yet
One of the biggest Silly Season moves that we are waiting to hear a resolution for is �just where Dodge will end up. Since it was announced that Penske would be moving to Ford for the 2013 season, there have been a ton of rumors and speculation, but no real solid information. And the reason [...] 
TheNASCARInsiders.com
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNascarInsiders/~3/cdqsQ8K1aJs/
Tuesday
Grosjean hangs on to Lotus seat for 2013
One of the last remaining pieces of the 2013 F1 puzzle fell into place when Lotus confirmed that Romain Grosjean will stay on alongside Kimi Raikkonen next season. The Frenchman, who won the Race of Champions in Bangkok on Sunday, … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/12/17/grosjean-hangs-on-to-lotus-seat-for-2013/
New Beetle Cabrio Novelty For The Hall Los Angeles 2012
The new Beetle Cabrio reach the European market in spring 2013, and follows the Beetle Cabrio 1949 New Beetle and 2002. And while it is always said that third parties were never good, this third generation of the Volkswagen New Beetle hit the market and stomping fun driving this convertible vehicle insured for four people. [...]
Source: http://www.autocarblog.co.uk/359-new-beetle-cabrio-novelty-for-the-hall-los-angeles-2012.html
2012 IndyCar Development Notebook
(Programming Note: The recent news items that have plagued indycar racing caused me to basically tune the sport out for the previous two weeks. Although the road ahead is still unstable, I am still committed to the series and this … Continue reading 
Source: http://anotherindycarblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/1183/
Birabongse Bhanubandh Lucien Bianchi Gino Bianco Hans Binder
The Year That Was: A splash n? go history of 2012 in the world of NASCAR
Can't believe we're already at the end of the year! Why, it seems like just yesterday that we were all basking in the glow of Juan Pablo Montoya's jet dryer fire at Daytona.
February
The season started with a rain-delayed Daytona 500. During the rain, we were joined for an impromptu live chat by a fella named Brad Keselowski. What ever happened to him? Once the race started, it wasn't long -- as in, two laps -- before Jimmie Johnson and Danica Patrick were taken out in a wreck. But the big story was the inferno caused by Montoya's collision with a jet dryer. That halted the race, allowing Keselowski to become the Twitter sensation that he is today. Oh, yeah, and Matt Kenseth won the race. We also saw the high school yearbook photos of a few of your favorite drivers.
[Related: Danica Patrick to divorce after seven years of marriage | Photos]
March
NASCAR came down hard -- for a little while, at least -- on the 48 team for unauthorized modifications. A few drivers got a handful of Tony Stewart on live TV. In Bristol, Keselowski won his first race of the season. In the first of many ugly events for Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. cut his tire, ending Gordon's Bristol day early. Clint Bowyer collected Gordon and Johnson in a late wreck at Martinsville that would have no later recriminations whatsoever.
April
Check out a bird's-eye (well, satellite's-eye) view of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car graveyard. Denny Hamlin's second win of the season, at Kansas, made the #11 the winningest number in NASCAR ever.
May
Danica Patrick showed some salt by crashing Sam Hornish Jr. after the checkered flag at the Talladega Nationwide race. At the Sprint Cup race, another monstrous wreck led to differing opinions; meanwhile, Keselowski won again on a daring last-lap move on Kyle Busch. Talladega was also the second half of a Kentucky Derby/NASCAR two-day infield jaunt that we haven't totally recovered from. At Darlington, Jimmie Johnson scored win No. 200 for Hendrick Motorsports, and Kurt Busch got into a fight with Ryan Newman's crew and got himself suspended for a race. Off the track, Jeremy Mayfield was ordered to pay $1 million for his dogs' attack on a postal carrier, and NASCAR named its 2013 Hall of Fame class.
[Related: Beer-chugging champ Brad Keselowski is perfect NASCAR pitchman]
June
DALE EARNHARDT JR. WON A RACE. In other news, Carl Edwards fell out of the top 10 after hitting a wall at Dover, continuing a long slow slide. His teammate Matt Kenseth revealed he'd be leaving the 17 and Roush Fenway after the 2012 season.
July
AJ Allmendinger failed a drug test, setting off an unfortunate chain of events that saw him leave the Penske team. And, for a moment, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in first place in the standings.
August
Sadness as a fan died from a lightning strike outside Pocono. Mark Martin had a scary wreck that could have been much worse at Michigan. Tony Stewart threw his helmet at Matt Kenseth at Bristol in the best fight of the year between drivers. It couldn't possibly get any better than that, could it?
September
Merry-go-round: Matt Kenseth revealed he's headed to Joe Gibbs Racing, while Joey Logano headed to Penske. A blown pit call in Richmond cost Kyle Busch a slot in the Chase and a possible championship shot. After yet another tumultuous season, Kurt Busch jumps to Furniture Row Racing.
[Related: Clint Bowyer pleased with second-place finish in points race]
October
Dale Earnhardt Jr. suffered a concussion in a monstrous Talladega wreck and missed two races. Denny Hamlin's championship chances vanished after mechanical problems at Martinsville.
November
In a perfect metaphor for his season, Kevin Harvick's car was hit by a parachuter's sandbag right before the Texas race. But Harvick had better news ahead, as he is reportedly headed to Stewart-Haas in 2014. Oh, and there was a little disagreement between the crews of Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer. In the end, however, the last man standing was Brad Keselowski, who hammered down his first Sprint Cup championship with an exceptional Chase.
Congrats to Brad, and thanks to all of you for a great season! We'll see you ... well, we'll see you all offseason. Stick around, won't you? Only three months to Daytona!
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Monday
Turner Motorsports changes name to Turner Scott Motorsports
The biggest Nationwide and Truck Series only team is getting a revised name.
Minority owner Harry Scott has expanded his role in Turner Motorsports, and the new team will be called Turner Scott Motorsports. The team announced the change on Friday.
?Harry becoming a co-owner is very positive for this organization as a whole,? Steve Turner said in a release. ?This team has grown and accomplished so much in the last few years, and it is still continuing to grow. Harry has been committed to our racing program, its drivers and our sponsors for several years, and he is a vital part of our organization. He is passionate about our sport and our employees, and has proven himself as a very successful businessman, so putting him in charge of our marketing and business efforts is a natural and perfect fit. We have always considered him to be an integral part of the Turner Motorsports family, and this is an opportunity for him to formally take over some of the reins as we continue to build this organization into one of the most successful teams in NASCAR. I am very optimistic that Turner Scott Motorsports will build upon our solid base and achieve continued success.?
Scott was a minority owner at Braun Racing when Turner puchased the assets of Braun Racing in 2010 and renamed it Turner Motorsports.
Turner won the 2012 Camping World Truck Series title with James Buescher and earlier in the week Buescher announced that he would be returning to the series to defend his title. The team also announced a sponsorship deal with Rheem that will see the company sponsor Buescher for 15 Truck Series races in 2013. Rheem last sponsored the Richard Childress Racing truck that Cale Gale drove to victory lane in the final Truck Series race of 2012.
Buescher also won the season opening race at Daytona in the Nationwide Series for Turner after a last turn crash took out the leaders. On Wednesday, Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet and sponsor Great Clips moved to JR Motorsports in 2013 while, in turn, a report linked Danica Patrick to Turner for her 10 Nationwide Races this season. According to Fox Sports, the team is expected to field entries in either the Truck or Nationwide Series for Miguel Paludo, Jeb Burton and Justin Allgaier in addition to Buescher
Luca di Montezemolo: ?It?s not a case of replacing Bernie??
Luca di Montezemolo has defended Ferrari?s actions regarding the Vettel/Vergne Brazilian GP incident ? and taken the opportunity to tease Bernie Ecclestone. After Bernie responded to the yellow flag saga Montezemolo made reference to Ecclestone?s age ? and Bernie in … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/12/20/luca-di-montezemolo-its-not-a-case-of-replacing-bernie/
Monster To Sponsor Yamaha's MotoGP Team?
It is looking increasingly likely that energy drink company Monster is to take on a role as co-sponsor of Yamaha's MotoGP team. Spanish website Motocuatro.com is reporting that Yamaha has bought Jorge Lorenzo out of his personal sponsorship by rival energy drink maker Rockstar and that both Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi are to carry Monster sponsorship on their leathers and on the fairings of their Yamaha M1s for 2013 and 2014.
Philippe Alliot Cliff Allison Fernando Alonso Giovanna Amati
Sunday
Andy Ahern is an entrepreneur par excellence
Andy Ahern has been at the helm in the transportations and trucking logistics sector since the day he went public with Ahern and Associates in 1987. Before Andy established his own truck transportation and logistics consultancy, he had garnered sufficient experience about trucking transportation. He had worked in senior positions in many companies. Even the [...]
Source: http://www.autocarblog.co.uk/373-andy-ahern-is-an-entrepreneur-par-excellence.html
2012 season in the rear view: Juan Pablo Montoya
Vitals: 22nd in the points standings. 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 2 top 10s. 5 DNFs.
Moment to remember: Oh, gee, what could it be?
Even if Juan Pablo Montoya won the 2012 Sprint Cup Series title, nothing was going to top the jet dryer incident at Daytona in February. Nothing. And Montoya obviously didn't win the championship, so nothing was really a close second either.
So when it comes to performance on the box score (the blaze was performance art at its finest), the highlight of Montoya's season are the back-to-back poles that he scored at Pocono at Watkins Glen in August. But, as Montoya's 2012 tended to go, they lead us directly into the next section.
Moment to forget: Those two poles could have been a great launching point for Montoya to grab a win, jump into the top 20 and suddenly be in the discussion for a Chase wild card berth over the final three races of the regular season. But instead, Montoya finished 20th at Pocono and then 33rd at Watkins Glen after issues with his left front tire. And it wasn't like Montoya was at the front for very long in each of those races. He led a combined eight laps.
The wrap: Chip Ganassi made some personnel switches at Earnhardt Ganassi before the season, including putting Chris Heroy atop Montoya's pit box for the season, and hinted that there could be more on the way if the team's performance didn't pick up. And it didn't. Teammate Jamie McMurray was just one spot ahead of Montoya in the standings.
The team announced that it would field Hendrick engines next year, switching from Earnhardt-Childress Racing engines. Will the powerplant swap be a catalyst for an uptick in performance in 2013? Or is there more to Earnhardt-Ganassi's struggles?
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HRC Press Release: Shuhei Nakamoto Looks Back At 2012, And Forward To 2013
With the kickoff to the 2013 season growing ever closer, those involved in motorcycle racing are starting to look back at 2012 and look ahead to 2013. After yesterday's review from Bridgestone, Honda are the next organization to issue a press release interview with a senior management figure. The press release interview with HRC Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto makes for fascinating reading, providing an insight into the 2012 season and expectations of 2013.
The interview covers the preparations for the switch to 1000cc, and the confidence with which HRC went into the new era. However, Honda soon ran into trouble, with the increase in the minimum weight added in December 2011, and the revised construction of Bridgestone tires supplied for the 2012 season, both the softer rear tire and the revised front tire (for additional detail into why the weight increase was announced so late, see the editor's note below the interview). Nakamoto provides some interesting details on how HRC dealt with the extra weight and the revised tires, revealing that it cost them half a season to solve the problems they had created. The HRC boss also explains why he believes that having multiple tire manufacturers is a better solution for all involved, creating more competition and allowing multiple solutions for different bikes. Nakamoto states that he believes this is one of the reasons why MotoGP racing has become so predictable.
Nakamoto also has very high praise for both Casey Stoner and Marc Marquez, the man brought in to replace him. His compliments on Marquez approach and talent are telling, Nakamoto revealing that at the HRC test in Sepang, Marquez was already lapping at the same pace that Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner were running. Nakamoto also provides insight into why he will miss Casey Stoner, and exactly how important the Australian was to Honda's racing program. Nakamoto rates Stoner above any other rider in the MotoGP paddock.
Year:
2013
2012 season in the rear view: Greg Biffle
Vitals: 5th in the points standings. 2 wins, 12 top 5s, 21 top 10s. 0 DNFs.
Moment to remember: After winning at Michigan in August, Biffle issued this statement:
Biffle was battling with Jimmie Johnson in the waning laps when Johnson lost an engine. On the ensuing restart for the oil that Johnson's car dropped on the track, Biffle pulled away from Brad Keselowski for his second win of the season.
The win also vaulted Biffle to the Sprint Cup Series points lead for the second time of the season and he'd hold that lead until the points were reset before Chicago.
Moment to forget: Biffle's proclamation at Michigan wasn't supported by finishing outside the top 10 in the first three Chase races. But the final blow to his championship hopes came at Kansas, when Biffle hit the turn four wall. He finished 27th, his lowest finish of the season, and left the track 11th in the points standings.
The wrap: Heck, it's almost like Biffle and Carl Edwards swapped places at Roush from last year to this year. After only three top fives and 10 top 10s all of last season, Biffle was a mainstay at the front of the field this season. And the fact that Kansas was the lowest finish of the season for Biffle was a testament to how well the team ran on a weekly basis. Biffle finished outside the top 20 an astonishing four times in 2012 and on two of those occasions, he finished 21st.
If we're looking for a stick-and-ball sports comparison, Biffle's closest comp could be the 2001 Seattle Mariners;� a team with a fantastic regular season that gets lost in the lights of a playoff loss.
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