Clutch Performers, Those Brits! Pun Intended.

British motor sports is enjoying quite a renaissance. It's like "the British are coming, the British are coming" all over again. However, this time, they're not wearing red uniforms and carrying muskets. Their uniforms are just as colourful, maybe more so, but now they are driving fast cars and riding hot bikes, not marching through wooded hillsides by night, led by friendly natives.

Let me provide some details. The U.K. has provided the last two Formula One champions in Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button (above). Five of the top nine riders in the current World Superbike Championship are British. The Brits even have two representatives in the top ten of that bastion of American sport, the Indycar Series. One of them, Dario Franchitti (yes I know he's a Scot, but that still fits some definitions of British at least), is currently in second place on the championship ladder.

So why is this British invasion eating up the world of motor racing? Frankly I'm not sure I have a truly definitive answer. Oftentimes, these things have a life of their own and work in cycles. The Poms have been up there before, producing a number of world champions; Nigel Mansell and Jackie Stewart come to mind. But when such phenomenon have momentum they are hard to stop. That's where British racing is now... rolling.