So who won what championship in the 2006 season..
First up is NASCAR, starting with the Craftsmen Truck Series, at the season finale on Friday night in Homestead, Todd Bodine scored his first Truck Series championship and brought home the first NASCAR championship for the Bodine family. For the NASCAR Busch Series, this season was no contest with Kevin Harvick clinching the 2006 Busch Series championship four races before the finale in Homestead in a huge domanating fashion.

Finally, the Nextel Cup Series and The Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship saw a shoot out down to the final laps this evening at the Homestead finale with Jimmie Johnson clinching the 2006 Nextel Cup Series Championship. The Unofficial Top 11 drivers in points were: 1. Jimmie Johnson 2. Matt Kenseth 3. Denny Hamlin 4. Kevin Harvick 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 6. Jeff Gordon 7. Jeff Burton 8. Kasey Kahne 9. Mark Martin 10. Kyle Busch and the million dollar bonus for 11th goes to Tony Stewart.

For all you NASCAR Nextel Cup Series fans, the 2007 Daytona 500 is just 91 days away.

In Formula One, Brazil played host to the season finale were it was Fernando Alonso becoming the yet again the youngest-ever champion for the second straight year. The 2006 Formula 1 Season will mark the end of Michael Schumacher's Formula 1 career and the youngest-ever champion Fernando Alonso taking the top spot going into the unknown (rules wise) 2007 Formula 1 Season.

Looking ahead to the two rivals in open wheel racing, the IRL Indy Car Series crowned Sam Hornish Jr. the 2006 IRL champion in a tie breaker for the most victories over Dan Wheldon back in September at the finale and in the Champ Car World Series, in no surprise here, Sebastien Bourdais clinched his 3rd consectutive Champ Car Championship down-under in Austrilia over Justin Wilson and A.J. Allmendinger.

In the Sports Cars two series, the Grand American Rolex Series, Jorg Bergmeister clinched his first daytona prototype championship and in the GT Series, it was Andy Lally and Marc Bunting in the #65 TRG Pontiac GTO.R. clinching the 2006 GT Championship.

In the American Lemans Series, the four champions were: In LMP1 was Allan McNish and Dindo Capello in the domanate winning Audi, LMP2 had Sascha Maassen and Lucas Luhr in a Penske Racing Porsche, GT1 had Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta in a Chevrolet Corvette and for GT2, Jorg Bergmeister in a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.

Finally, (at least in what I covered/watched this season) the NHRA, three of the four points championship went down to the finale race with Top Fuel being rated as the come from behind victory in NHRA history as Tony Schumacher grabed the 2006 NHRA Top Fuel Championship, as he had to win the race and set a national ET record to win the championship over Doug Kalitta. In the Funny car Division, after beating Ron Capps in round 2 at the finale in Pomona, John Force clinched his record 14th NHRA Funny Car Championship over his teammate Robert Hight. In the Pro Stock Cars, Jason Line beat out his boss Greg Anderson for the 2006 Championship and in Pro Stock Motorcycles, Andrew Hines took the 2006 Championship.

Well, thats it for the 2006 Motorsports Season, Congraduations to all of the champions.

For the last time, See Yeah!
By Brian Vermette, RaceDriven.com

Looking for a free Image Hosting Service for all my web needs, but for now,
To look at the #48 Chevrolet Impala SS, Click Here 

Going beyond the Nextel Cup racing from Atlanta and the Chase for the Nextel Cup Series, NASCAR fans were shocked on friday when Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet unveiled the all new Chevrolet Impala SS that was shown off in the #48 Lowe's Chevy colors for Jimmie Johnson. Chevrolet will now run the Monte Carlo SS on the current car for 2007 and 2008 and the Impala SS on the COT starting at Bristol next year. There is also talk about Dodge doing the same with the Dodge Avenger, no confirmation...we will all know when Dodge makes there announcement.

Now in all fairness, I have writen about the COT a couple times before, but with all of the talk going around and some drivers and teams coming out publically and saying what they think of the Car of Tomorrow including this article on NASCAR.com and another article on Motorsport.com, this issue deserves at least one more blast from me. Now my readers know what I already think of the COT, its ugly, its also begining to remind me of an IROC (granded I like the look of the IROC cars for only 12 of them) or TRAC car crossed with an Grand-american Rolex car. Its rear spoiler and front spliter is not what NASCAR's fans are use to seeing on track, but all NASCAR fans really want or at least me is a racecar that looks similer to the street verison with the safety and technology features of the COT, thats it. Its an R/T racecar model of the street verison.

My Closing Statement: To everyone in the NASCAR community, for NASCAR to really understand were its drivers, teams, owners, and fans are coming from on this COT issue, NASCAR will have to see this car in action starting at Bristol in order to fully understand just what we all are talking about, I will say that the 2007 Nextel Cup Season will be one for the record books and beyond, it will be a season of testing this COT in race format to see it all unfold...we are all going to have to live with it, unless the heads of NASCAR say otherwise, but I will say that after Bristol, things will start to be come clearer with every passing COT involved race, its NASCAR's show,

Now what about cost, safety and how do we get it to look better and create better/safer racing?

Thats all

Racedriven.com previous articles on the COT:
1. January - "NASCAR: Car of Tomorrow in 2007?"
2. Late August - "NASCAR's Car Of Tomorrow final version coming at you"
3. Late October - "Half-way home in the Chase for the Nextel Cup and more on the COT"

Thats it for me, any thoughts?
This is Brian Vermette from Racedriven.com, See Yeah!

With just five races to go in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, Last Saturday night's 500 miler at Charlotte (Lowe's) Motor Speedway showed that no driver is out of this championship yet even if you are 200 points out.

For Kasey Kahne, last Saturday night showed that he is still the one to beat on 1.5 milers and bigger and that he is not out of this championship by no means. With that for the second straight week, Kahne, who has finished 2nd at Talladega and won last Saturday nights Charlotte race has brought himself to just over one race out in the championship.

On the flip side of that was Jeff Gordon who had troubles during the race and yet again finishing well down in the standings, now finds himself 10th -216 points out of the lead, but still in the hunt. But surprisingly, No one driver has yet taken off with this championship points lead and it appears that no one will.

For all ten of these drivers, the championship chase is not over, one bad finish for the points leader like what happened last week at Talladega and one good finish or even a victory by another chaser could result in as much as 156 point swing. Its still too early for anyone to say that they are out of this championship hunt, but if Jeff Burton continues with top 5-10 finishes for the remainder five races, only to top 5 in points will have any shot.

Point Standings and finishing position in last Saturday night's race in Charlotte:
1. Jeff Burton Leader and finished 3rd
2. Matt Kenseth -45 -- 14th
3. Kevin Harvick -89 -- 18th
4. Mark Martin -102 -- 30th
5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. -106 -- 4th
6. Denny Hamlin -137 -- 28th
7. Jimmie Johnson -146 -- 2nd
8. Kasey Kahne -160 -- Winner
9. Kyle Busch -195 -- 6th
10. Jeff Gordon -216 -- 24th

Going beyond the Chase and looking toward 2007, the Car of Tomorrow continues to make noise with another test session this time down at Homestead Motor Speedway. This test has 56 COT cars testing between Monday and Wednesday. Most of the Nextel Cup teams have COT's already made and now there is talk about several teams asking NASCAR to consider debuting the COT superspeedway program, a little early at the spring Talladega race instead of the fall Talladega race. It seems that with the repaving of the Talladega superspeedway, it has made the track very different from its sister track Daytona and that now teams must build all new cars for just that one race.

I like this idea too, its at least $150,000 per car plus labor to build and for some of these car owners, triple to five times that amount. Don't forget the backup car as well. I hate to say this, but a couple of weeks ago, Jeff Gordon made the comment that he would rather wait until 2008 and just run the COT and I still agree with that.

See Yeah!

By Brian from Racedriven.com

With all of the close championships in Motorsports that are going on rightnow, it was only fitting that last Sunday night's WindTunnel on SPEED would get in on the subject too with there question of the week. But after hereing a comment in the late stages of the show, I decided to add a little bit more to it, so the question is:

Which championship fight is more exciting - Alonso vs Schumacher in Formula 1, Force vs Capps in NHRA's Funny Car or The Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship in NASCAR.

The idea of picking on over anyother is not the easiest thing for a Motorsports fan to do, but what is really going on in each series...

In Formula 1, on Sunday before WindTunnel, in an article I touched on this championship battle and the Chinese Grand Prix that resulted in a tie in the championship between Alonso and Schumacher. Basically, this fight will come down to the line with just two races to go. Read more...

Mean time in the NHRA, each of the four top series has a big battle going on among the top runners, but the most talked about and watched for that matter has been in Funny Cars with John Force, Ron Capps and Robert Hight battling it out with Force leading Capps by just 1 point and Force's teammate Hight who has been on a teir as of late winning two of the last three event closing the gap up to just 35 points back. Last years championship came down to the final race with Gary Scelzi winning over John Force. This year, the three way fight will likely yet again go down to the final event in Pomona.

No predictions here on this fight, but I have been trying to watch these events a much as possible for not only the simple reason of I am getting to like it, drag racing, but I have been a fan of John Force and John Force racing since before I meet him at Racearama in 1996, when I got his autography, he was so full of life them, and he still is today. He can get the the job down, no doubt and these John Force Racing teams are the best in Funny Car.

Finally, the Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship in NASCAR with a 10-race 10 driver championship battle that if you have been keeping tabs on, no one is yet out of this. Really it is to early to predict a winner, but that has never stopped me with my early top driver finishing order prediction that I created just after the first chase race at New Hampshire. I predicted Kasey Kahne would win the championship because of his results on the final 9 races to go and those tracks over Kevin Harvick, but rightnow, its his teammate Jeff Burton not only returning to his winning ways when he won at Dover, but has taking an early points lead of 69 points over the very impressive rookie Denny Hamlin and 1 more point back over Mark Martin. The top three are only seperated by 70 points with just 7 races to go and unpredictable Talladega Superspeedway is up next were "The Big One" might appear.

My final 10 driver finishing order predictions..Read Here

In the past and now I have no love lost for Talladgea racing, but I try to keep an open mind, its only 2 races a year. With three races to go, the chase picture might look a lot clearer to some, but who knows. I hope in away I am wrong with my prediction of the top finishing order, because I am a Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan and he is down, but not out by any means. The #8 Budweiser Chevy is a championship caliber team,...its all about the results, like its said..you don't have to win a race in the final 10 races to win the championship.

With all that said...he's my answer, it's The Chase For the Nextel Cup Championship in NASCAR and if that was a surprise to you, then you are not a repeat reader of Racedriven.com, I have a big NASCAR fan since the early 90's..and I'm still here. However I will say that the NHRA Funny Car Championship has gotten interesting too,, but since I go to NASCAR events at New Hampshire,its still number 1. Check out all three of these championships, its all there.

A couple of things that caught my eye from the Nextel cup race last weekend in Kansas, Congrads to Tony Stewart on winning the race in a no fuel move to win, but speecking of fuel, the quote of the week had to come in the closing laps when a NBC pit reporter said.."The fuel is in the tank in the trunk of the car" said after Jeff Gordon's fuel pump gave out and he was behind the wall, I'm out..

See Yeah!

One of the biggest questions in NASCAR is how to update the current points system used in all three of NASCAR's top racing series including the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. The idea of completely rebuilding the points system is not needed at all. This 35 year+ old system is just fine with a couple of needed tweeks to still give drivers the chance of winning the championship even if they have a couple of bad races. The current system rewards drivers on consistance, not victories, the points system needs to do both.

One other problem, at any given NASCAR race is after a wreck happens, those drivers involves enter back in the race to pick up a couple of positions for the points in turn making a giant mess for the leaders to get through and sometimes resulting in more wrecks, case in point, Talladega.

So after taking in to account all of these factors and a couple more and using the current 2006 points system as a model, this is what I have come up with.

Here we go.....

This points system would still be used through the entire 36-race schedule including the Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship.

The winner of each NASCAR race receives 170 points. The runner-up in each event scores 150. From there, the point total declines in five-point increments for places three through five, points awarded drop four points per driver for positions six through 10 and three-point increments separate drivers' points for finishers in 11th through 32nd.

The 33rd to 43rd or last-place driver, gets 42 points each.
(Hopefully this keeps wrecked cars off the track and if a driver has a bad race, they don't loss as much.)

Bonus Points:
5 - leading a lap
5 - leading the most laps
20 - winning a race
20 - winning the 26-race points standings going into the 10-race chase.
(Instead of a 5 point lead over 2nd place in the chase, it would be 20 point lead.)

The winner of a race would receive 20 bonus points. If the winner lead the most laps than 5 more bonus points for a total of 25 points.

As for reseting the points for the 10-race chase, that would basically stay the same with one change. The points leader after the final 26-race (Richmond Race in 2006) would receive 20 more points over second place, which is the same for winning a NASCAR race.

What's Next!

Comments?

By Brian from Racedriven.com
See Yeah!