A Look Back at All of the 2013 Motorsports Champions

Now with the calendar officially turned to 2014 we take a look back at all of the champions from the series that we covered.

Formula One – Sebastian Vettel: The German continued his torrid pace in F1 by dominating the season for Red Bull Racing. He captured 13 wins in the 19 races and will bring a win streak of nine races into the 2014 season. He had no competition and now will go into the turbo V6 era of F1 with four consecutive World Championships.

IZOD IndyCar Series – Scott Dixon: Every fifth year Scott Dixon wins the IndyCar title. That is now a trend after he won his first in 2003 then again in 2008 and now his third in 2013. Things looked bleak for Dixon’s championship hopes until Helio Castroneves had two terrible races in Houston that gave Dixon the points lead. He was able to struggle through the finale to win the title by seven points. Dixon scored four wins during the season.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series – Jimmie Johnson: He used yet another strong Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup to earn himself his sixth championship. In the 10 race stretch he scored nine top 10’s and his worst finish was 13th. Other drivers like Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick had good Chase’s but could not keep up with Johnson and the No. 48 team.

NASCAR Nationwide Series – Austin Dillon: The grandson of Richard Childress continued his steady progression up the NASCAR ranks by winning the championship in a tight battle with Sam Hornish Jr that went down to the final laps in Homestead-Miami. Although he went winless in 2013 Dillon once again proved he can race with the best in the business and is deserving of his move into Cup this year.

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series – Matt Crafton: It was a dominating 2013 season for the 13-year veteran of the Truck Series and a great story to see him and ThorSport Racing win the championship. Crafton scored top 10’s in 19 of the 22 races and astoundingly completed every single one of the 3,391 laps that the series ran.

NASCAR K&N Pro Series East – Dylan Kwasniewski: The 18-year-old again impressed on the track by following up his 2012 K&N Pro Series West title with the East Series title. He scored six wins in the 14 race season to capture the championship by 33 points over Brett Moffitt.

NASCAR K&N Pro Series West – Derek Thorn: He really started to turn heads this season at the age of 27 and capped off a great year by winning his first championship by a narrow six points over Cameron Hayley. Thorn won three races and three poles and had 14 top 10 finishes in the 15 race season with an average finish of 4.1.

NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour – Ryan Preece: At the age of 23 Preece was in his seventh year of competition in the open wheel Modified cars and had his best season to date. He won four of the 14 races and had 10 top five finishes which propelled him to his first title by a margin of 32 points over Doug Coby.

NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour – George Brunnhoelzl III: It was yet another great season for the 31-year-old Brunnhoelzl who captured his fourth career Southern Modified Tour championship. He used three straight wins in races three through five of the 12 race season to open a points lead and then was able to maintain his lead after scoring four second place finishes and a third in the final five races. Overall he scored 11 top five finishes and beat Kyle Ebersole by 31 points.

ARCA Racing Series – Frank Kimmel: The 23-year veteran of the ARCA Racing Series won his record extending tenth championship and also broke the record for all-time series wins by getting to victory lane four more times in 2013 to bring his total to an impressive 80 wins. He completed all but three of the laps and finished in the top 10 in all of the 21 races in the season to win the championship going away for ThorSport Racing.

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