My 2009 Racing Recap

My NASCAR Stories of the year...

• Stewart Haas Racings first year results in Smoke leading the Championship at the end of the regular season - I think NASCAR is a better place with Smoke doing well. He is a racer, he loves racing, he drives, owns race teams, owns a race track, and he speaks his mind.
• Earnhardt Jr finally finds his feet and shows the world that he does deserve the hype - or not.
• Mark Martin showing the world that if you've got it, you've got it - regardless of age.
• Montoya finding his feet and showing the world that he does deserve to be there.
• NASCARs last lap restrictor plate wrecks and how to keep the Cup cars on the ground.
• NASCAR broadcasters and journalists constantly complaining.
• Oh.. and 4 in a row for JJ, assuming he clinches it at Homestead.

My other racing stories of 2009...

F1 - New aero rules in F1 work to promote racing, nay overtaking no less... in F1 no less... until the FIA let the teams have multi layer rear diffusers, and in doing so give the cars back a lot of the aero downforce and aero dependency the new rules were supposed to eliminate.  Still better racing than F1 has had for a long time but not as good as earlier in the year. Jenson Button wins the World Championship, by not only having the best car for the first half of the season but by driving the wheels off it too!

Sarah Moore wins the Ginetta Junior Championship. The Juniors showed that no aero, road tyres, H-pattern gearboxes, only 100 bhp and rear wheel drive, all it takes to create good racing. So on the back of a good year Ginetta announce they are bringing in a new car for 2010?!? Please Ginetta, make them look more modern if you must, but don't mess with the basics. If it isn't broken...

V8 Supercars, the last "touring car" championship using H-pattern gearboxes swap to sequential 'boxes - what a shame. I understand that I am old fashioned in thinking that part of the art of driving is in the gear change. I may also be in the minority in believing that while your average road car (Fiesta / Focus / Mondeo / etc) has an H-pattern 'box then so should a "touring car" (Falcon in Australia to carry the car link on). Only NASCAR now races on a road course with an H-pattern box, and long may they continue. Even the Ginetta Juniors are going to a sequential 'box I think.

The IRL finds its long lost oval racing mojo. By letting the teams use aero devices that had once been banned for cost containment purposes the IRL reintroduced the style of 2x2, nose to tail oval racing that its fans have been craving since Sam Hornish left for NASCAR. Thank god for that, the oval races have been dire for a quite a while now.