Auto Racing

CONCORD, N.C. -- The celebration of Chip Ganassi's success was supposed to be a surprise, an opportunity to gather his great champions and toast their remarkable runs.

He found about it, but the celebration will stay etched in Ganassi's memory.

"It was one of the more special moments of my racing career," Ganassi said Tuesday, searching for the words to adequately describe his emotions.

CONCORD, N.C. -- Danica Patrick, the highest-finishing woman in the Indianapolis 500, will skip the race this season and instead enter NASCAR's longest event of the year.

Patrick said Monday she's added the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway to her schedule. She'll drive for Stewart-Haas Racing, and team owner Tony Stewart said the decision to sit out the Indianapolis 500 was Patrick's decision.

"We didn't tell her she couldn't run the 500. It was left up to her," Stewart said. "It shows how dedicated she is to making this transition."

Patrick has left the IndyCar Series for a full-time move to NASCAR. She's running the second-tier Nationwide Series for JR Motorsports, and 10 races in the elite Sprint Cup Series for Stewart. She had previously announced eight Cup races, and the Coca-Cola 600 is her ninth announced event.

An auction dedicated to the late Dan Wheldon raised more than $600,000 that will go to his wife and two young sons.

The final total of $627,203 was released Friday by organizers of the Dan Wheldon Auction. The two-time Indianapolis 500 winner was killed in an accident in the Oct. 16 IndyCar season finale.

MILWAUKEE -- When, we ask, is the right time to wrap up a year that won't end? Because that pretty much sums up 2011 in motorsports.

Starting with a head-shaker of a Daytona 500, it included more monumental highs and heartbreaking lows than in any other in years. Maybe decades. With a sour economy continuing to play havoc with such a sponsor-driven industry, continuous deal-making and deal-scrambling have all but wiped out the off-season.

In most years, a 20-year-old winning his sport's biggest event could carry a season. That's almost an afterthought in a year that had a little of everything from A to Z, or at least from Bayne to Wheldon.

Mindful of holiday overindulgence, we'll try to break the year down into digestible bites:

Even before NASCAR's most dramatic finish to a season, negotiations were underway to extend Sprint's title sponsorship of the Sprint Cup series.

But the culmination of the new points system implemented in 2011, the stirring Chase for the Sprint Cup championship won by Tony Stewart in the final race of the season, and the "Have at it, boys" mentality encouraged by NASCAR a year ago, made it an easy decision for Overland Park-based Sprint to continue the partnership.

That's why Dan Hesse, chief executive officer of Sprint, announced late Friday night at the Sprint Cup awards banquet in Las Vegas that the company agreed to extend its title sponsorship of NASCAR's premiere series through at least 2016. The original 10-year, $750 million agreement was to expire after the 2013 season.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- NASCAR opened its season with a fresh-faced Daytona 500 winner and ended it with one of the most thrilling championship race in series history.

In between, there was conflict, controversy and, most important, compelling competition -- none more so than Sunday's season finale. Tony Stewart grabbed his third NASCAR championship with a determined drive at Homestead, where he passed an unbelievable 118 cars to win for the fifth time in the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.