The doom-and-gloom crowd believes kids no longer care about cars. They say declining attendance at the track and flat television ratings prove that racing is skidding into irrelevance.
Of course, you can spin numbers any way you like. Those folks conveniently forget that NASCAR is beaten only by the National Football League when it comes to sports on American TV. Or that the Indianapolis 500 continues to attract the largest single-day sporting event crowd in the world.
Like many other sports, racing maybe isn't as well as it was, but it certainly remains alive. And it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
The 2014 season certainly produced some dynamic performances and achievements at racetracks around the world -- and a few dubious ones. Here's a recap:
NASCAR
Kevin Harvick's move from Richard Childress Racing to Stewart-Haas Racing was a game-changer as the Californian charged to his first Sprint Cup Series championship. Harvick led far more laps than any other driver, and he and the No. 4 team peaked when it counted, winning three of the final six races, including the last two.
NASCAR guaranteed that the Cup champion would remain in doubt until the last race with its controversial new elimination-style Chase format. As seems to have always been the case during the Chase era, Jeff Gordon was the driver most adversely affected by the change. Gordon's 2014 campaign was his strongest in more than a decade, but he was cruelly shut out of the Homestead finale by the slimmest of margins.
Gordon was effectively Hendrick Motorsports' lead driver in 2014 as Jimmie Johnson endured an inconsistent season where his four wins weren't enough (or well-timed enough) to advance into the Eliminator Round of eight.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was also dropped from the title chase at that point despite matching Johnson and Gordon with four wins, including the Daytona 500 and an emotional triumph in the fall Martinsville race. In his final season with crew chief Steve Letarte, who is moving into television, Earnhardt had arguably the best year of his Cup series career, in contrast to teammate Kasey Kahne, who managed to land a contract extension with Hendrick despite winning only once and barely scraping into the Chase.
Team Penske was the year's strongest team overall, with Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano combining for 11 wins. Logano made the final four, while Keselowski made headlines on several occasions, first when he spun while aggressively at the front of the pack early in the spring Talladega race, but most notably for his role in highly publicized postrace altercations at Charlotte (with Matt Kenseth) and Texas (Gordon) when the Chase pressure was really ramping up.
If Gordon was the driver most harmed by the new Chase format, Ryan Newman derived the most benefit. After essentially swapping seats with Harvick to join Richard Childress Racing, Newman nearly pulled off an astounding upset by advancing to the final four without a win, then putting together his best race of the season at Homestead to nearly steal the Cup from Harvick and Stewart-Haas. He also provided one of the year's most memorable individual moments, barging past Rookie of the Year Kyle Larson on the last lap at Phoenix for the position he needed to secure his ticket to Homestead.
The Cup championship was the bright spot in what was pretty much a dismal year for Tony Stewart and his team. Danica Patrick was generally more competitive and achieved a couple career best results, yet she dropped one place to 28th in the standings. She still had a better year than teammate Kurt Busch, who won a race in SHR's new No. 41 car to make the Chase, but ended the year refuting allegations from his ex-girlfriend that he was physically abusive. The highlight of Busch's season came in May, when he was the first driver to attempt the Indianapolis 500/Coke Zero 600 double; he distinguished himself in the IndyCar with a sixth-place finish while driving for Andretti Autosport.
Stewart started the year testing the surgically repaired leg that ended his 2013 campaign in August. A tough season results-wise turned tragic almost exactly a year later when Stewart was moonlighting in a Saturday night Sprint Car race at Canandaigua Motorsports Park. His car accidentally struck and killed driver Kevin Ward Jr. when Ward ran onto the track to confront him after wrecking the lap before. An investigation revealed marijuana in Ward's system and no criminal charges were filed against Stewart, but he was devastated and spent several weeks in seclusion before returning to the Cup series.
For the third year in a row, a superstar driver is switching teams as Carl Edwards moves from Roush-Fenway Racing to Joe Gibbs Racing. He's hoping to emulate the success of Kenseth (seven wins, second in the 2013 championship) and Harvick (2014 champion).
IndyCar
Will Power finally won the Verizon IndyCar Series championship, after finishing second in 2010, '11 and '12. But the Australian driving for Team Penske made it a lot harder than it could have been, incurring pit lane speeding and blocking penalties that cost him potential wins. Driving errors like a midrace spin at Sonoma Raceway -- Power's favorite track -- certainly didn't help matters.
Still, Power raised his game in 2014, demonstrating that he's developed into a competitive oval racer, not just a road course specialist. The championship remained close only because no individual driver or team was able to step up and take advantage of Power's mistakes.
Power's teammate Helio Castroneves remained in title contention deep into the season through consistency, but the Brazilian was rarely a race-winning threat. Juan Pablo Montoya also won a race for Penske in his return to Indy cars and it will be interesting to see if the veteran Colombian can return to championship form with a year of modern open-wheel experience under his belt.
Chevrolet engines dominated, winning 12 races to Honda's six. Honda did sweep the all-important month of May in Indianapolis, with Simon Pagenaud winning the popular inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis on the road course for Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports and Ryan Hunter-Reay taking a spectacular victory for Andretti Autosport in the Indianapolis 500.
Hunter-Reay matched Power with a series-high three race wins, but a wreck at Long Beach and several mechanical failures doomed his hopes of duplicating his 2012 IndyCar championship.
Pagenaud was often the lead Honda driver, and his second consecutive two-win campaign earned him a 2015 seat at Team Penske, which will field four full-time Indy cars for the first time in the team's long history. The only other Honda driver to cross the finish line first was obscure rookie Carlos Huertas, who parlayed masterful strategy from Dale Coyne Racing into a fluke triumph in the rain at Houston.
Andretti and Chip Ganassi Racing traded engine manufacturers, with Ganassi taking over as a Chevrolet runner. The Ganassi organization understandably had a forgettable first half to the year, adapting to the Chevrolet package and a new driver lineup featuring Tony Kanaan in place of the retired Dario Franchitti. Kanaan and the No. 10 team finally began to gel in the second half of the season, ending strongly with a win in the 500-mile season finale at Auto Club Speedway.
Scott Dixon rallied to take third in the championship, his remarkable win at Mid-Ohio standing out as the signature individual performance of the season. Charlie Kimball and Ryan Briscoe failed to reach Victory Lane, and Ganassi may again cut back to three cars in 2015 if sponsorship can't be found to run young American prospect Sage Karam.
Ed Carpenter Racing continued to gain strength, with owner/driver Carpenter claiming his second consecutive Indianapolis 500 pole and a win at Texas, while hired road course ace Mike Conway snatched a pair of wins. The team merged with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing at the end of the season, which should boost SFHR driver Josef Newgarden's hopes of landing his first IndyCar race win.
The Indianapolis 500 was the highlight of the season, with Hunter-Reay and Castroneves engaging in a magnificent duel in the closing laps. On the other hand, the rainy first race at Houston was a farce, and even heavier rain at Toronto prevented IndyCar from completing the first race of a scheduled doubleheader on the scheduled day. An attempt to run both races the following day started in shambolic fashion with a multicar first-lap crash.
IndyCar ended the season facing questions about car count for 2015, along with continued dissatisfaction about the series' truncated race schedule that wraps up prior to Labor Day weekend.
Formula One
The Mercedes-Benz team completely dominated Formula One in 2014, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg combining to earn 18 of 19 poles on the way to winning 16 of 19 races as Hamilton earned his second world championship.
Hamilton suffered a demoralizing DNF in the opening race at Australia and twice had to fight back from significant point deficits to Rosberg. The German had the better qualifying record, besting his teammate 11-7 on Saturday. But on Sunday when the points were handed out, Hamilton responded with 11 wins to Rosberg's five, including six of the last seven races.
Relations between the Mercedes teammates nearly came to a boil at Spa-Francorchamps, where Rosberg ran into the back of Hamilton early in the Belgian Grand Prix, sending Hamilton into retirement with suspension damage. Team management was able to get the building animosity between the drivers under control, and Hamilton really asserted his superiority over the rest of the season to take a deserved title.
In the first year of F1's 1.6-liter turbo V-6 formula, the Mercedes-Benz engine and energy recovery systems that was also used by several other teams was demonstrably superior to the packages produced by Renault and Ferrari. The Williams team made the best use of the Mercedes, taking the only non-works team pole (Felipe Massa at the revived Austrian Grand Prix) and landing Valtteri Bottas fourth in the year-end standings.
Daniel Ricciardo was the revelation of the 2014 season and the only non-Mercedes driver to win a race. Promoted from Scuderia Toro Rosso to Red Bull Racing, Ricciardo outclassed four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel from the time RBR's troubled Renault-powered challenger turned a wheel. Riccardo ended the year with three wins and a considerably enhanced reputation, while Vettel chose to depart his longtime home at Red Bull to be the latest savior chosen to restore fortunes at Ferrari.
Fernando Alonso's tenure at Ferrari ended in disappointing fashion, and with Vettel coming on board, the fiery Spaniard has been recruited to lead Honda's return to F1 with McLaren. The McLaren team agonized for a long time before selecting veteran Jenson Button as Alonso's teammate, with promising youngster Kevin Magnussen demoted to test driver despite a decent rookie season.
The Lotus team took a big step backward in 2014, but at least Lotus made it all the way through the season, which can't be said for the Caterham and Marussia teams. The demise of those teams renewed questions about how long Formula One as a whole can sustain its lavish spending.
NHRA
Individual female drivers have achieved success in NHRA drag racing for decades, but 2014 was the most successful campaign yet in terms of multiple women winning races and making an impact.
Erica Enders-Stevens made history by becoming the NHRA's first Pro Stock category champion, as she emerged victorious from a tense battle with former champion Jason Line.
Alexis DeJoria and Courtney Force each won multiple races in Funny Car, and Force ended her year by announcing her engagement to IndyCar racer Graham Rahal. Force's sister Brittany continued to improve in the Top Fuel class and her first win can't be far away.
John Force remains an ageless wonder, nearly stealing the Funny Car title from eventual champion Matt Hagan from Don Schumacher Racing. DSR also had a stellar season in Top Fuel, with Antron Brown earning a series-high six wins and Tony Schumacher taking his eighth category championship.
MotoGP
Marc Marquez was racing's most dominant performer in 2014, winning a record 13 MotoGP races, including the year's first 10. Marquez essentially had the crown clinched by midseason on the way to earning his second consecutive title.
The other highlight of the season was seven-time champion Valentino Rossi's return to title-contending form. If Marquez was untouchable, Rossi established himself as best of the rest, with two wins and 13 podium finishes on the way to second place in the standings.