So as we begin December, I begin this week’s anniversary event with one of the most memorable finishes to a V8 Supercars race (And Championship) ever seen.

December 4, 2010, Sydney Olympic Park, Race 25 out of 26, with the Top 3 in the Championship (James Courtney, Jamie Whincup, Mark Winterbottom) all leading the race with 15 laps to go.

A massive thunderstorm arrives, the rains pours down, they’re all on slick tyres approaching the sweeping Turn 5…. And the fun begins.

What sealed it was Mark Skaife and Matt White having a rare moment of gold in commentary by perfectly capturing the moment:

“OH NO, he’s in the fence, they’re both in the fence!”

“THEY’RE ALL IN THE FENCE!”

The last month of this wretched year finally begins

And just when I thought we could survive any more chaos until Christmas…

OH MY GOD LEWIS HAMILTON TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVID-19

BAH GAWD KING, I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!

Talk about a crazy coincidence – Valentino Rossi and Lewis Hamilton, both of them 7-time World Champions on two-wheels and four-wheels respectively, both contracted COVID-19.

So after 13 years since he debuted, Lewis will miss a Grand Prix weekend, (Technically) ending a record streak of 265 consecutive race starts…. which now means Daniel Ricciardo on 186 is the longest active streak.

So that also means the record of 13 wins in a season won’t be tied, the inevtable 100 Pole Positions milestone will wait until 2021, and, with the way Bahrain and the UAE are handling quarantine, barring a Jedi Mind Trick, Hamilton may not even be able to enter in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in a fortnight.

Good thing the Championship(s) are well and truly toast.

So not only does this mean the Sakhir Grand Prix just got blown open, but we’ll probably have Stoffel Vandoorne in a Mercedes (He’s the listed reserve driver), and if the Stoffel Waffle somehow performs well, that might just reignite the debate of whether or not a drover’s dog really could win in that Mercedes.

Actually, with the form Valtteri Bottas has been in, he’ll storm to pole with no Lewis in sight, bog down at the start, and finish 5th, as Red Bull end up winning.

Andrew Bogut calls it a day

In a perfect world, the 2020 Summer Olympics would’ve gone ahead, and Bogut would’ve departed from professional basketball after playing for the Boomers one last time, in what would’ve been his third Olympic appearance.

Alas, he retired some 8 months after playing his last professional game for the Sydney Kings in that NBL Finals defeat, although at least he didn’t retire after a horrific injury, which was the overwhelming theme of Bogut’s career everywhere he seemed to go.

He’ll leave one hell of a legacy – One of the best Utah Utes players ever, a No.1 draft pick who lasted 14 years, an NBA Champion, and pretty much the catalyst for this renaissance of Australians in the NBA (And the game of basketball Australia) when he got taken No.1 by the Bucks back in 2005.

His Twitter feed may be fruitier than an Ablett family reunion, but damn, he could play.

The last Group 1 of the year in Australia comes up on Saturday

But, stuff the Kingston Town Classic, because I’d like to point out that there’s a horse probably (Not) named after me in New South Wales.

In fact, it probably was named after me, because it drifted out to $3.00, weakened in the straight and ran 4th, making him a 14 start maiden.

I swear George Harrison is looking over my shoulder

The further away you get from the Lego portrait, the more he just stares at you…

Well, it was either George or Ringo.

The recent developments in Penrith probably explain Brent Naden going to a rehabilitation facility last month

The more you analyse this scenario, Ivan Cleary dropping Naden for Tyrone May to start that Grand Final really has set off a chain reaction out in the foot of the Mountains.

LOOKS LIKE NRL DRUGS SCANDALS ARE BACK ON THE MENU!

When they said get on the beers, I don’t think they meant get on the nose beers….

Ian Chappell dislikes switch hitting in cricket, as it’s “Totally unfair” on the bowling team

Then again, one of Chapelli’s solutions was for the fielding team to revolt and take the law into their own hands (Someone tell him that Underarm doesn’t work anymore), given the umpires can’t do anything, so for now, it’s another classic case of:

Los Pumas have been gripped by a sudden outbreak of racism and sexism before playing the Wallabies

Back in my day, an absurd statement by an Argentine usually involved something about claiming ownership of the Falklands, or firing a spitball at Lleyton Hewitt.

It looks like this all started when the Argentinian press & the Argentinian people weren’t too happy with the Pumas not displaying some form of a tribute to Diego Maradona (Heck, the All Blacks did a better job than they did), so someone somewhere went Twitter digging in revenge, and discovered the now ex-captain Pablo Matera (Who comes from an upper class background) was ‘a bit’ of an unabashed racist, and he apparently disliked fat women more than Al Bundy:

So let’s see what the old rough translator comes up with:

“Nice morning to go out in the car when stepping on blacks”

“SOUTH AFRICA baby! I’m finally leaving this country full of blacks.. OUCH!!”

“Abs on a skinny guy tits on a fat woman #DoesNotCount”

“The fat woman keeps staring at me hahaha poor poor fat woman I’m not going to give her my seat, that’s not pregnancy, no, it doesn’t count”

That last one definitely sounds like something Al Bundy would’ve used on Married With Children:

Obviously Matera will cop the brunt as the captain, but Guido Petti and Santiago Socino were also suspended until further notice for some of the undefined things they posted.

There’s obviously a lesson to learn in all this…

When Diego Armando Maradona passes away, you better bloody well pay tribute.

Peak A-League meets Peak Asian Champions League

Peak A-Leagues stops for nothing.

Also, it’s worth noting Perth Glory finally got their first Asian Champions League point last night against Shanghai Shenhua, after going from 2-0 up (Both goals from free kicks) to 3-2 down in the 2nd Half, before Neil Kilkenny converted a penalty 4 minutes from time to finish it 3-3.

Cars bursting into flames, cars getting ripped apart, cars being flipped on their lids, marshalls nearly getting killed running across the track…

It’s great to see Formula 1 embracing the 1970s again.

The Fittipaldi name returns to F1

So with Romain Grosjean’s hands obviously needing time to recover, Haas (Who just signed Nikita Mazepin) will turn to their reserve driver for the ‘Sakhir’ Grand Prix, the American-born Brazilian Pietro Fittipaldi, grandson of the legendary werewolf Emerson Fittipaldi, who, in his human form, won the World Championship twice in the 1970s.

Not only does that mean a Brazilian is (Briefly) back on the grid for the first time since Felipe Massa retired, the Fittipaldis make a bit of history as the first family to have 4 drivers in the sport.

Obviously, the most famous Fittipaldi is Emerson, the World Champion for Lotus and McLaren, who also the Indianapolis 500 twice, plus the 1989 CART (Later Champ Car) title.

There was also Emerson’s older brother Wilson, who appeared in 38 Grands Prix during the 1970s, and ran the Copersucar-Fittipaldi team with whom Emerson finished his career with after leaving McLaren.

The third was Wilson’s son Christian Fittipaldi, who famously ended the 1993 Italian Grand Prix by back-flipping over his Minardi teammate Pierluigi Martini after contacting Martini’s right rear wheel:

At the time of his debut aged 21 in 1992, Christian also became the first Formula 1 driver born in the 1970s… 28 years later, Kimi Raikkonen will be the last.

Also waiting in the wings is Pietro’s brother Enzo Fittipaldi, who currently races in F3 as part of Ferrari’s Driver Academy.

Another interesting fact – Pietro is the first F1 driver to previously race in a NASCAR series since Mario Andretti, who appeared in 14 races in the old Grand National Division during the late 1960s, before he switched back to Indycar, and got his start in F1 for Lotus, eventually winning the 1978 World Championship.

One last one – Oscar Piastri gets the promotion to Formula 2 in 2021

Very good to see for our own F3 Champion, and he’ll be sticking with Prema as well, potentially filling the seat vacated by Mick Schumacher, if/when he signs for Haas.

It’s also a piece of history, as he becomes the first Australian to race in Formula 2 since the old GP2 series was re-branded by the FIA in 2017.

In fact, would you like to know the last time an Australian even appeared in the second-tier championship?

Rob Nguyen, who appeared in 3 races in the 2003 Formula 3000 Championship, finishing 8th, 5th and 13th, before he lost his funding and his drive.