After a not entirely unsuccessful predicting debut last year, I've decided to stick my neck out again and predict the winner of a few more notable sporting occasions and series throughout 2009. along with a few other bits of information we might be seeing on the back pages.

Formula One

This all comes down to who's come out best with their new cars. Providing all are created equal then it's going to be another Lewis Hamilton year. If the new aero regs truly help overtaking then Hamilton's race craft is going to be a major factor in a number of races this year.

We saw glimmers of it last year - Hockenheim springs to mind - and anyone who watched him during his F3 and GP2 years is more than familiar with it.

It should hopefully be a very open year. Toyota and BMW will be stronger challengers for wins week in, week out, which could include maiden wins for Hiedfeld and Glock (Glock, not Trulli). KERS will only be here for one year.

NASCAR

The educated money is on a three-way race between Kyle, Jimmie and Carl. So I'm going to go out on a limb and predict a Roush title for Greg Biffle. Greg just needs to get his ducks in a row, it so nearly came off for him in the chase in '08 as he peaked at the right time. He just needs to do the same again. Only better.

There will be very few surprises around in NASCAR-land this year, with perhaps only Juan Montoya and Brian Vickers breaking into the big four for The Chase.

Right, here's a big one. Joey Logano won't race the entire season, and I don't just mean that Gibbs with stick a ringer in the No. 20 for the road courses, there will be weeks at a time when Sliced Bread is benched for the good of the team.

I will get sick and tired of writing things along the lines of "I hate Start-and-Park teams"

Indycar

Indycar needs a close season, but that isn't going to happen. At best it's going to be a three horse race, between Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti and Ryan Briscoe, with Scott Dixon again coming out on top.

The world will continue to get more and more fed up with the Danica Patrick PR machine, and Andretti-Green will struggle to get anywhere near the win column.

Le Mans

Taking, only Sebring and the Le Mans 24 hours here, as the continental Le Mans Series are currently all over the place in regards to predicting next month, let alone November.

It all depends on how the new Audi R15 comes out of the box. If it comes out fast (and perhaps more importantly, reliable), then Audi could sweep the board. If there are even the slightest problems then this is everyone else's best chance at grabbing the spoils for years.

As it is, I believe the new Audi won't come out fast, handing the overall Sebring win to the Lowe's Fernandex P2 Acura, after both the brand new P1 models suffer the sort of problems that handed Penske the win last year.

Le Mans is Peugeot's for the taking. They have two years head start on their 2009 cars compared to Audi, and knowing your car is crucial in endurance racing. 

Some smaller categories....

 World Touring Car Championship - no-one can beat the diesel Seats right now, so I'll take the world's fastest Swede, Rickard Rydell, to take the title.

V8 Supercars- Last year I predicted a Holden title, and Ford promptly won the thing, so whatever I say the opposite is going to happen. So it'll be another Holden title, by which of course I mean Ford will win, probably with Whincup again.

 World Rally Championship- Loeb (yawn)

Following the Philidelphia Eagles 25-32 defeat to Arizona, long time Eagles Head Coach thundered to the press that he was disappointed about the League's handling of the game that eventually led to the Cardinal's looking to break their 61 year championship drought.

"Look at the guys in NASCAR!" screamed Ried, turning approximately the color of a Cardinals jersey. "They knew they had a problem of their biggest guys not being on show on the big day [The Bud Shootout, Feb 7] so they moved the goalposts and got them in. It doesn't take much thought to see that we're better better the team going through today. There's a reason they haven't won jack for 61 years, and that's, well, they're not very good. The League has made an error that is going to spoil the Superbowl for millions. We're far more marketable than this desert team. Hell, we're even good!"

Ried's outburst comes after NASCAR officials "moved the goalposts" to allow 'wild-card' entries, including superstar Tony Stewart, to the season opening exhibition Bud Shootout.

The Eagles coach continued to suggest that the NFL should retrospectively widen the goalposts at all NFL stadiums by 6 feet thus ruling David Akers' failed extra point kick good, a mistake that Reid felt lost the game for his side.

"Nevermind," Ried added. "We'll merge with the Pittsburgh Steelers this week and continue on to greater success." 

The 10th stage of the 2009 Dakar Rally saw another serious incident today, with Spaniard Christobal Guerrero being flown to a local hospital in a coma after an accident on stage.

The incident comes in the same edition of the rally that has already seen the death of one motorcyclist, Frenchman Pascal Terry. However, the same communication setup that may have helped save Terry's life, yet failed and may have ultimatly been part of his death, worked admirably well and have given Guerrero the best chance of survival.

An official press release from the Amaury Sports Organisatio (who organise the Dakar) details that Guerrero fell after 160km of todays 460km stage. His Iritrack - the emergency tracking beacon alerted officials to the accident at 12:38pm (local time) and a medical helicopter was on scene to rush the rider to hospital by 1:06pm. As a cynic it seems very deliberate that the ASO release these times after the Pascal Terry accident when it took over a day for news of the emergency beacon to reach officials in Argentina.

In better news the British pair Paul Green and Matthew Harrison, who crashed their car heavily on the rally's second stage, have both been released from intensive care and are expected to make a full recovery.

Today's car stage was won by overall leader Carlos Sainz, only 21 seconds ahead of Robby Gordon's Hummer after over 5 and a half hours of competitive stage. Sainz and Gordon swapped the lead of the stage several times after initial leader, Orlando Terranova rolled his car and was forced to withdraw.

Gordon remains 5th overall, 90 minuted behind Sainz, but continues to gain on 4th place Joan Roma, closing in to 21 minutes behind the sole remaining Mitsubishi works driver, who has been given the simple task of finishing  by his team bosses, anxious to avoid a PR nightmare. Gordon's team mate Eric Vigouroux also finished in the top 10 for the stage and moved into the top 20 overall at 17th after the stage.

Tomorrow's competitive stage has been cancelled due to the fact that the race crosses from Chile back to Argentina and the all important border crossing can only be made in daylight, which with fog forcast for the morning that would ground the crucial support helicopters, would be impossible.

Robby Gordon finished the 9th stage of the Dakar rally in 3rd place, 2m 16s behind the stage winner - multi-time World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz in a factory backed Volkswagen. Sitting in 5th overall with 6 stages to go Robby is a seemingly unassailable 1hr 34m behind Sainz who leads the car category overall.

However, the Dakar has shown this year (as much as any) that it is willing to ruin the hopes of winners in a blink. Sometime leader Nasser al Attiyah was thrown out of the rally late last week after missing two of the rally's waypoints. Past winners Luc Alphand and Stephane Peterhansel - both in works Mitsubishi's - were forced to withdraw, Alphand after a health scare with his co-driver and Peterhansel after a cataloge of mechanical problems including a fire.

But Robby is not purely reliant on the misery of others, his pace today allowed him to make up 26 minutes on Joan Roma - the final surviving works Mitsubishi - in 4th place.

All of this puts into context what Robby is actually doing. The AP stories featured on the main FOXsports site can sum up numbers and placings it does no justice to what he is actually doing. Robby's Team Dakar USA - a part of the same Robby Gordon Motorsport team that runs the No.7 car - is his private team - just like his Sprint Cup operation. Him challenging the likes of the factory VWs and Mitsubishis for stage wins is like him chasing down the NASCAR Hendricks, Roushs and Gibbs for wins, week in week out.

Add to to the fact that he is, for most conditions on the rally, in an inferior car. The VWs that are so far dominating the contest have the same formidable diesel power that has worked so well for the Audi R10 sports car, and 4 wheel drive. This gives them an enormous advantage over the petrol powered (incredibly) two-wheel drive Hummer when it comes to climbing the dunes and hills on the rally's path.

RGM is also running a second Hummer H3 car for Frenchman Eric Vigouroux, who currently sits 23rd overall, making up positions as other faulter. RGM has high hopes that both it's cars will be in the top 20 of the car categroy by the time the race ends in Beunos Aires on Sunday.

All of this means I am slowly warming to Robby Gordon. I may not have been too kind to him in the past, but along with him coming over to the Camry side of life for next year, his performances his Dakar performances are boosting him in my estimation no end

Those of you with good memories, or access to the FOXblog achives, will remember I blogged off about the cancellation fo the 2008 Paris-Dakar rally 12 months ago due to security risks in several of the North African countries on the route. 12 months on and the 2009 edition of the annual motorsport curtain raiser is underway, only in the South American states of Argentina and Chile.

However, and perhaps sadly, the new setting has brought the same news to the race.

The format remains the same, with the race starting late last week and continuing until it finishes in the Argentine capital Beunos Aires on Sunday 18th January. Each day contains a gruelling stage, especially compared to those raced on by the WRC - for comparison's sake the stage for today comprises of 506 competitive kilometres, with an additional 257 km of road travel, or 'liason', simply to get to the start of the race stage, and to the overnight camp. However, at least on analysis of the 4 stages already completed the race's trademark sand dunes are left off the new rally course.

However, while the torturous dunes may be gone, the danger remains, and may even have increased. The second stage saw French motorcyclist Pascal Terry fail to arrive in the first overnight stop and a crash that hospitalised the British pairing of Paul Green and Matthew Harrison, competing in the car class.

The attrition rate remains high with over 50 of the bike competitors, out of approximately 250 who started, having withdrawn after only 4 stages over. And it's not just the small privateers calling it a day. NASCAR driver Robby Gordon (who has made a habit of competiting the Dakar) currently sits inside the top-10 in the car class in his Hummer, but has been reported as having rolled the car twice yesterday, although TV pictures showed no noticeable damage to the car. Uber-experience Ice Racer and reigning World Toruing Car Champion Yvan Muller has been forced to pull out after his Car-class buggy crashed with a Truck competitor setting both vehichles ablaze, thankfully without casualty.

However, not every case is like this with search parties having found Pascal Terry, dead, three days after he disappeared. While official reports tell of how he was in an isolated area several miles away from his abandoned bike, questions have to be asked about the proficiency of the search, which no doubt involved several of the race's helicopters, if it took them three days to find him. Argentine police are investigating the cause of death, presumably answering the question of whether finding the rider sooner could have saved his life.

If the time it took for his location to be found is cited as a factor in his death, could it also signal the end for the Dakar, or at least as a comptitive race?  

UPDATE: The Dakar's European broadcasters, Eurosport, have come to pretty much the same conclusion as me. However, they also have additional information. Each competitor is given an emergency location beacon, so they can be found if they abandon out on the course. Terry's beacon was activated and was found with him. However, the beacon signal goes not to the race organisers on the course but to their French HQ, and it took a full day for the news of the beacon's location to reach Argentina.

Furthermore Eurosport (who are based in the rally's travelling camp) report that there was news that Terry had been seen in camp two days after his disappearence, which led to the initial search being called off.

Pascal Terry 1959-2009