KEY POINTS:
If this year is any guide, next year will be a vintage one for New Zealand motorsport.
New Zealand won only one senior world title this year, when Pukekohe teenager Katherine Prumm confirmed her status as the world's best women's motocross rider.
Her 2005 win was achieved over two heats in Germany but she once again dominated the European and American riders in 2006, winning two of the four heats held in Germany and Sweden, and finishing second in the other two.
Prumm, who also managed sighting shots at the United States championship this year, leading it after two rounds, is intent on completing a hat-trick of world title wins, as well as winning the US title next year.
Her task will be more difficult next year as the women's world cup series has been expanded to three rounds but she said she was determined to make it three in a row.
There was every indication fellow motocrossers Josh Coppins and Ben Townley, as well as US-based driver Scott Dixon, could join Prumm at the top of the podium on their respective circuits.
Coppins, in Europe, and Townley, in the US, had a horror year with injuries but are now looking forward to making up for lost time.
Coppins, who scored seven consecutive podiums in the world MX1 championships and won the Irish Grand Prix after missing the first seven rounds with injury, will have a new team behind him next year.
After years on a Honda chasing the Yamaha of 10-times world champion Stefan Everts, Coppins has signed with the Rinaldi Yamaha team that provided the Belgian great with his recent championship-winning machines.
Everts, after a legendary career, has retired, installing the gritty New Zealander as the odds-on championship favourite.
He justified that favouritism by winning the Taupo international motocross series, beating Everts and five-time world champion Joel Smets, also of Belgium.
Townley, 2004 MX2 world champion and third behind runner-up Coppins in last year's MX1 championship, headed for the bright lights of the US this year only to hit by a couple of serious injuries.
He missed the Supercross indoor season and then the outdoor season after just one round because of ill-timed crashes.
If he stays healthy, there is no doubt the determined rider from Taupo will do well in the US.
Fully fit again by September, Coppins and Townley teamed up with Auckland's Cody Cooper to put New Zealand on the world teams championship podium for the first time since 2001.
They finished third behind winners Belgium and the US in England.
"Iceman" Dixon spent two years in the wilderness after his 2003 title win but charged back to finish fourth in this year's Indy Racing League.
He said he had spent the year coming to grips with his new Honda powerplant and Dallara chassis, and predicted his Target Chip Ganassi team would be the one to beat next year.
Aucklander Wade Cunningham failed to defend his Indy Pro Series title after a bout of appendicitis laid him low for two rounds but showed he was still a force in the IRL undercard series by winning three rounds and finishing third overall.
There was also huge interest in New Zealand's participation in the inaugural A1 World Cup of Motorsport.
But after a promising start, inexperience overtook the fledgling team with drivers Matt Halliday and Jonny Reid eventually taking Black Beauty into fourth overall for the series.
The A1GP circus arrives here for the first time when the sixth round is run on the refurbished Taupo circuit next month, and the team is buoyant after Reid won the fifth round in Indonesia.
A number of young New Zealand drivers are also catching the eye on the international stage.
Hamilton's Chris van der Drift, 20, finished runner-up in the European Formula Renault 2.0 series in which Palmerston North teenager Brendon Hartley, 16, also competed, finishing 14th.
Hartley has re-signed for another season with the Red Bull junior development programme and will again contest the Renault championship.
Wanganui teenager Earl Bamber shone in Asia, winning the Formula BMW Asia championship.
Bamber, who is only 15, won the opening round and by season's end became the first rookie to win a Formula BMW regional championship. In all he scored 10 wins and secured 14 podium finishes.
This earned the Wanganui Collegiate student a shot at the world finals of the series in Valencia, Spain, with a chance of a test drive with the BMW Sauber team going to the winner.
His team Meritus was unable to get his car shipped in time, leaving him stranded.
Such was his potential BMW invited him to their end-of-season Formula One party in recognition of his achievement.
Tragedy hit motorsport on both sides of the Tasman when Australian racing legend Peter Brock, 61, died in September.
He was killed when the car he was driving in a Targa tarmac rally crashed into a tree in Western Australia.
At the Bathurst Supercar endurance race a month later, Gold Coast-based New Zealander Mark Porter died from injuries suffered in a horrific crash during a V8 Supercar support race.
Former world touring car champion Paul Radisich was badly injured at Bathurst when he put the Team Kiwi Racing Holden into a wall, almost bankrupting the one-car team.
However, New Zealanders showed they had long hands and big pockets, dipping deep to rescue TKR from its financial difficulties and the black car will be back on the V8 Supercar grid next season.
- NZPA