NOVEMBER 20, 2006

Here and there

Greg Biffle won the final round of the NASCAR Nextel Cup at Homestead on Sunday, giving his sponsor The National Guard a proper send-off. The Roush Racing driver beat Dale Earnhardt Inc's Martin Truex Jr and rookie Denny Hamlin but Jimmie Johnson's ninth place was sufficient to give the Hendrick driver his first NASCAR title, 56 points clear of Matt Kenseth, who finished sixth, and Hamlin. Kevin Harvick finished fifth in the race and fourth in the championship in his Richard Childress Racing entry, while Dale Earnhardt Jr rounded out the top five in the Nextel Cup.

In Macau Mike Conway won the Formula 3 race while the World Touring Car Championship ended up with a second consecutive title for Britain's Andy Priaulx. The Jersey driver beat Jorg Muller to the title by a single point. There were nine men who could win the title at the start of the weekend but after Priaulx won the first event there were only three left in the title race and when Augusto Farfus collided with the two SEATs of Peter Terting and Yvan Muller and retired, it was left to Jorg Muller to win the race and hope that Priaulx would fail to finish better than fifth - which is where he finished.

In New Zealand Marcus Gronholm dominated the penultimate WRC event and by doing so won Ford the WRC Manufacturers' title, the company's first WRC title since 1979. Ford has collected 185 points and with only 18 now available at the final round in Wales, the Kronos Total Citroen team cannot catch up, having only 160 points at the moment. The Subaru World Rally Team is third with 97 points.

In Japan the Formula Nippon men finished off their season at Suzuka where Andre Lotterer won the race, beating Tsugio Matsuda (Mobilecast Impul). The Japanese driver had done enough to grab runner-up status as rival Loic Duval (PIAA Nakajima Racing) who scored just one point at Suzuka fell to fourth in the standings behind Lotterer. The runaway champion was Mobilecast Impul's Benoit Treluyer. Team Impul also took fifth in the title thanks to the efforts of Satoshi Motoyama with Sweden's Bjorn Wirdheim finishing sixth for the DoCoMo Dandelion team.