Blue Ovals in Winners Circles; 2013 Year In Review....

For over one hundred years folks have been making Ford go fast and for nearly as many they have been ending up in the winners circle of whatever race they were competing in! 2013 was a typical year for the Blue Oval in that context, a year of much excitement and many victories! In the most followed arena of NASCAR Ford Racing had two racers pilot their Fusions into the Top-10 in the Sprint Cup Challenge and in the Nationwide Series Ford took the Manufacturers' Championship for the 2nd time in 3 years! Not all Fords go around in circles though. Some Blue Ovals like to fly thru the air and speed thru the forest like in the World Rally Championship where driver Mark Cronje drove his M-Sport Fiesta S2000 to complete domination winning 7 of 8 in the circuit helping make Ford Racing/M-Sport the first team to secure a clean-sweep of season wins since Audi's 1983 performance! Speaking of flyin Ford's Mr Brian Deegan is no stranger to the friendly skies in his his Rockstar Energy/Makita/Metal Mulisha/Mickey Thompson Tires Ford F-150 Raptor! His amazing driving secured him the Lucas Oil Challenge Cup Racing Pro-2 Trucks Title and gave fans of off road racing everywhere some serious thrills this past season! Some racers cannot be restricted to a closed course and those rogue racers take to the wide open spaces of the Baja 1000! This year the Ford name seemed to fill every list of class winners! Six of the top ten Trophy Trucks wore a Blue Oval proudly on the grill as did nearly all of the L2-3, L2-7, L2-7SX and L2-8 winners! In this years Baja, if the class had four wheels it was dominated by Fords for sure! If you are any kind of motorsports fan you know what the Australian V8 SuperCars are and the Blue Oval rocked things down under this year there as well! Driving some pretty awesome Ford Falcons two of Fords falconers placed in the top five for the season and Ford took away 2nd place in the Manufacturers' Title chase as well. If you haven't watched one of these races you NEED to put it on your list of resolutions this year, it is AMAZING! Endurance racing has always been a great fit for the engineering of Ford and the folks at Winding Road magazine decided to make a go of it this year taking on the 25 Hours of Thunderhill race with a Mustang Boss 302S and of course.... they rocked it 'Like A Boss' winning their class easily! After many years of blurred lines Formula Drift took off huge this year and Ford was right there in the mix! Shred stars Vaughn Gittin Jr and Justin Pawlak smoked the rubber on thier Pony's to 5th and 6th place in a season of thrills that ensured many, many new fans will be following this incredible sport next year! See a great video recap of the season here! And when it comes to smokin the tires few can compare with the winning-est Funny Car racer ever, Mr John Force who claimed his incredible SIXTEENTH championship this year at the wheel of what has to be the most powerful Pony on the planet! As the year came to a close the Blue Oval got some great news that the speed records set by the Michael Shank Racing Ford EcoBoost/Riley Daytona Prototype at Daytona International Speedway in October have been homologated by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), giving Ford fastest-lap standards for both10 kilometers (203.010 mph) and 10 miles (210.017 mph) – both from a standing start! Powered By Ford now also means EcoBoosted! Yes Ford fans, 2013 was one incredible year for the Blue Oval indeed and 2014 is looking to be even more exciting and it start just next week with a team of V8 powered Ford Rangers headed to take on the mighty Dakar Rally! Stay tuned folks, its gonna be a bumpy, albeit victorious, ride I'm sure! Happy New Motorsports Year Everyone! :)

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