Just a few days remain on the '08 calendar, but our minds are already set on next year's spring thaw and the start of a new motorsport season. Can you blame us? This year we witnessed a bounty of drama and inspiration, from milestones established to underdogs finally getting their due. It's one of the cool aspects of this gig - being constantly reminded why we love racing.

For your edification and bemusement, we submit 10 hot shoes who thrilled us in 2008, in no particular order.

Justin Pawlak
Formula Drift

We met JTP a couple years ago through SR Motorcars in Gardena, Calif., and were immediately impressed with his approachability and laid-back demeanor. We soon learned homie was quite proficient behind the wheel of his FC chassis Mazda RX-7, as he began racking up event wins in area comps (including NOPI Drift's one and only LA stop) and secured a Formula Drift license in quick order. Then came 2008, and Pawlak let loose.

In his first full season of FD, he began by qualifying for Top 16 tandems at the Long Beach opening round in April, and repeated the feat for Round 5 in Seattle this past August. He then slid to the top step of the podium for the FD exhibition in Mexico the same month, and in October nabbed his first points-earning podium finish at the Irwindale Speedway finale, taking third. The solid finish to his year came with a coveted windfall, an invitation to the inaugural Red Bull Drifting World Championship in November. Not a bad way to kick off a pro drift career.

www.justinpawlakracing.com

Tyler McQuarrie
Redline: Time Attack!, Super Lap Battle, Formula Drift

For a time, McQuarrie was known to our readership mostly as the handler of the Hankook JIC Magic 993 GT2, the only Porsche competing in Formula D, and seemingly struggling at that (after arguably greater success in the RS*R Honda S2000). But the driving instructor's luck changed when he switched disciplines and started applying his talents to time attack. In 2008, it was McQuarrie's grip skills that made a resounding statement.

In another S2000, this time the famous CWest carbon fiber-bodied AP1 (resurrected by Brian Crower and Gary Castillo of Design Craft Fab), he started the year with the overall win in Redline: Time Attack!'s opening event at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in California, nearly eclipsing the series' track record that he himself had set the previous year. He went on to do the same for Round 3 of the Redline championship at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah during June, and followed that with an Unlimited RWD win for Round 4, Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, in July.

McQuarrie closed out his Redline campaign with another U-RWD class triumph at the VIR finale in October, all but assuring him the title of series Grand Champion for 2008 (which he shared with co-Grand Champ Matt Andrews). He then took a second time attack crown for the year in Super Lap Battle's Unlimited FR class at the series' Buttonwillow finale in November. For the record, that's called kicking ass and looking good doing it.

www.tylermcquarrie.com

Chris Rado
Redline: Time Attack!, Super Lap Battle, Battle of the Imports

Another multi-disciplined hot shoe hustlin' in 2008 was Mr. Rado. With backing from World Electronics and Scion, he fished from both the sport compact drag racing and time attack pools in appropriately outfitted tCs, with commendable results.

For the quarter-miling Battle of the Imports this year, Rado didn't make all nine rounds, but the ones he did make he came out guns blazing. Of the five events he challenged, he was number-one qualifier in four and made it to the final eliminator in all five. He came away with two class victories, at Atco Raceway, New Jersey, in June and Woodburn Dragstrip, Oregon, in September, and finished 2008 with second in the BOTI point standings.

Rado and the World Racing/Scion team were also making inroads with time attack, laying down lap times in both Redline and Super Lap series. Behind successive class wins in Rounds 4, 5, and 6 of the R:TA! championship, he locked up the 2008 Unlimited FWD title. In the SLB closer, Rado had to settle for second best after clocking the fastest time for a FWD at the event, only to find out later that the session time would not count. After years of uneven finishes in drag racing, Rado may have finally hit his stride, and found a second motorsports calling to boot: time attack.

www.world-racing.com

Danica Patrick
IndyCar Series

We can hear the haters already. What does Danica Patrick have to do with sport compact racing? Isn't open-wheel competition in America irrelevant? Why is everyone making such a big deal about a woman winning an IRL race?

Fair enough. We'll admit, the relationship between AGR driver, and the entire IRL, and Honda is a coincidental one (Honda happens to supply the series with its 3.5-liter V-8 race engines). And yes, we understand those who say, in light of juggernauts like NASCAR and F1, the IndyCar racing product is a marginal one at best. Efforts like the merger with Champ Car show the league is more than aware of the challenges it faces.

Regardless of what you think of Patrick as a person, though, and all of her out-of-cockpit shenanigans, the things that cannot be denied are her talent and where it has taken her. By triumphing on Honda's Japanese home track, Twin Ring Motegi, in April, she became the first female to win a major auto racing event on a closed-course circuit, and led the way in a year that was particularly notable for pro women racers. It was only one win for Patrick, in a year - and IRL career - full of frustrations, but an enormous step for women nonetheless. Sorry, haters, but you can't deny history.

www.danicaracing.com

Vaughn Gittin Jr.
Formula Drift

Brash and bold both in his Falken Ford Racing Mustang GT and out, JR never fails to entertain, and in 2008 the larger-than-life pilot continued his climb up the drifting ladder. In the D1 Grand Prix USA Professional Drift series he had already collected significant wins in a US vs. Japan battle in 2005 and in an All-Star World Championship in 2007, but the one trophy that seemed to elude him was first-place hardware in the Formula D championship.

Consistency would be key to nailing down that first FD win, and JR was as reliable as the tide in 2008, qualifying Top 16 in five out of the season's seven contests. He would get as far Great 8 in three, but only one of those events would amount to overall triumph, which didn't come until the Irwindale season ender in October. In the dramatic finale, JR had to take out reigning series champ Tanner Foust for his long-overdue FD victory, and added to his two D1GP wins, make him the winningest driver at the House of Drift.

www.vaughngittin.com

Jeremy Lookofsky
Battle of the Imports

These days Lookofsky is probably making a greater name for himself with his insane custom whips than his drag racing prowess, but in the limited time he spent professionally competing this year he still set the pace in the quarter among naturally-aspirated front-wheel drives. In fact, by season's end it was clear JLook continues to be essentially untouchable.

Campaigning BOTI's '08 Pro Stock championship, Lookofsky and the DVS/Drag Cartel Honda Civic started the season after its midpoint, hitting up the Las Vegas Super Tuner Nationals in July to qualify number one and finish first with elapsed times in the 9.6s and trap speeds hovering around the low 140mph range - among the fastest for the top pros in the group. The team then returned to action in August for Round 7 at Pacific Raceways in Washington to register its most authoritative performance of the season, times in the 9.2s and speeds at mid-140s.

Lookofsky would show up to a few more events over the remaining months of '08, including the BOTI finale at the Auto Club Dragway in October and the North Vs. South West Coast Sport Compact Shootout in early December (where he ventured into the low-150mph range), putting in similar results. Without articulating much, he has proven he's still king of the all-motor hill.

www.dragcartel.com

Sebastien Loeb
World Rally Championship

At the risk of drawing the ire of some of our less cosmopolitan readers, this Frenchman and ex-gymnast is likely the best driver you don't know about. Cool, focused, and quick, they call him the Michael Schumacher of rallying, and for good reason.

At 29, in his first full year of World Rally Championship competition in 2003, Loeb almost took the title. In his second year, he easily clinched the crown with a record-matching six wins. In his third, he broke all records with 10 wins, including six in a row. 2006 saw him take his third consecutive title without even contesting the last four rounds of the championship because of an injured arm. In 2007, Loeb drove the new C4 WRC on his way to a fourth consecutive crown.

For 2008, Loeb again was the one to beat, racking up 11 wins out of 15 rounds for the Citroen Total WRT and sealing his fifth crown in Japan, with one rally left on the schedule. He also helped Citroen score the 2008 WRC manufacturers' title with the prevailing performances, and then a week later withstood fierce pressure from equally talented hot shoes to become the 2008 Race of Champions' Champion of Champions. With a diluted WRC for 2009 (sans both Subaru and Suzuki), we don't see any reason why Loeb can't take a sixth World Rally crown at the end of next year. Atta boy, Frenchie!

www.sebastienloeb.com

Tanner Foust
Formula Drift

Foust pretty much whored himself out this year, reaping the benefits of the reputation he has for driving like the dickens and not crashing. In 2008, we saw Tanner drift, run time attack, rally-cross in the X Games, face off against the world's best in the Race of Champions, and then host a bunch of TV spots, including a US adaptation of the BBC's Top Gear program (which we now hear is in danger of being scrapped).

If that doesn't amaze you, what will is that Foust did many of these things well (actually, we can't vouch for the TV stuff; we haven't seen an episode, and besides, our medium is web). His season's pinnacle was likely the second consecutive Formula D championship he earned after his performance in the series' closing round in October. In collecting back-to-back championships, he became Formula D's first reigning king to protect the crown.

Three-peating will be an entirely different beast, though. Next year, Foust trades in his Rockstar/AEM 350Z for a Scion tC, a platform that had some pretty high-profile woes adapting to the sport for Ken Gushi and RS*R this year.

www.tannerfoust.com

Lewis Hamilton
Formula One

In 2007, the biggest story from the season-ending Grand Prix of Brazil was Mclaren's Lewis Hamilton, who held a tenuous seven-point lead over lone challenger Kimi Raikkonen from Ferrari. Raikkonen would rule the day, and Hamilton falter, letting the world championship slip through his young fingers.

Fast forward to the same race in 2008, Hamilton again with an identical margin entering the contest, only this time over hometown hero Felipe Massa, also with Ferrari. Massa took pole position in qualifying and needed to steer his car to a win, and Hamilton to finish sixth or worse, in order for the title to go to the Brazilian.

In an intermittently wet GP, the endgame first took shape on Lap 64 of 71, when rains returned after an extended period of dry. Within a couple laps, most of the field came in to pit row to take on proper tires. At the time, Massa was out front, being chased by Renault's Fernando Alonso, Raikkonen, Toyota's Timo Glock, and Hamilton.

With two laps to go, amid intensifying wet weather, the sixth-running Sebastian Vettel got around Hamilton in his Toro Rosso to assume fifth, effectively knocking the McLaren driver out of title contention. Hamilton would not be able to get back in front of Vettel. Massa, Alonso, and Raikkonen would cross the finish line in that order, and for a brief time Massa believed he had won the drivers' championship.

The reality was, however, that Glock, who chose to stay on dry tires, would ultimately lose two positions in order to slow down and not fly off the very wet track. The two relinquished spots went to Vettel and Hamilton, fourth and fifth, thus delivering the young Brit his first world title in exceedingly dramatic fashion. In winning the series championship, Hamilton became the youngest driver ever to earn the title, and the first black driver to do so as well. What a way to end the year.

www.lewishamilton.com

Rhys Millen
Formula Drift

You're probably sick of us talking about the Red Bull drifter and heir to the Millen motorsports legacy, but it's tough not to. He's one of those dudes like Foust who has his hands in a little of everything, and his '08 tale is one of personal fortitude in the face of adversity.

First, there was the accident in late 2007, where Millen broke his neck and back in a practice attempt for a stunt gone horribly wrong. Then he lost his main car sponsor in Pontiac midway through his 2008 FD campaign.

These things did not deter Millen, though. After forgoing the first event of the Formula D season, Millen drove to four podiums in six races, two of them victories, to just narrowly miss snagging a second title. In July, he went out to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and in a Solstice that had just been repaired from a heavy crash the previous weekend in Vegas, he stormed to a new record, breaking the mark he set last year by more than 14 seconds. Then in November, he topped it all off by taking home the coveted title of world champion from the landmark Red Bull Drifting World Championship in Long Beach, a contest culling the 32 best drivers from around the globe.

What's next? Looks like Millen is ready to tempt fate and try that flying trophy truck 360 again that broke his back in '07. Somebody get this guy a sedative...

www.rhysmillen.com