There’s also a lot history that came to end on Sunday as well. If you’ve ever attended a NASCAR event, you know that the sound of more than 40 cars and 800-plus horsepower is an incredible experience – it’s an assault on your whole body, not just your ears! It all builds during the last hour, with the pre-race activities, the flyovers, and finally the cars come to life. At the end of the race, it’s like a ‘deafening’ silence: The cars shut off, the cheering crowd clears out, and a calm comes over the track.

When the last engine shut off on Sunday (congrats to Tony!), it was the end of history and an era.  Never again will the premier series in NASCAR, the Sprint Cup, come to life using carburetors. Literally 50 years of history, all of the teams and drivers and cars that came before, all of the changes to the cars, they all had the fuel system in common. And now that passenger cars have moved on, NASCAR will as well.  At Daytona in February, when we all hear, “Drivers, start your engines!”, it will be with a totally new fuel injection systems. I can’t wait to hear that roar, and know that Freescale is making it happen.

While we’re playing a big part of the story going into 2012, Sunday reminded me that racing is still about drivers and teams. Two guys, fighting over several hours, and only one will take home the championship. We’re there to provide the technology, but it’s the people on the track that turn it into something great. Like all of our customers, we provide the tools, the rest is up to them, and the results can be amazing.

Ever wonder what an electronic fuel injection system looks like on a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car? This picture, taken at a recent event at Charlotte Motor Speedway, shows the new fuel injection systems that will replace carburetors for the first time in NASCAR history. These new systems, which debut at Daytona in February, contain Freescale MCUs.