My annual year-ending bash among the local fantasy Grand Prix members has always evolved in different directions to keep it interesting. This year, in no small part due to the remodeling of the house, I decided to set up a bowling alley on the hardwood floor in the living room between a set of 2 x 4’s.

My next immediate thought was to put a theme on the plastic pins purchased at the local toy store. Instead of cars, which only occurred to me in retrospect, I put one photo of a driver, team owner or FIA official on each of the ten pins using clear plastic tape.

Identifying photos are called “head shots” in the journalistic trade and in this case there was little irony. In the year of Stepheygate, it wouldn’t take much guessing to figure out who comprised the ten pins in this “F1 Rogues Gallery Bowling Tournament.”

Since this is a fun-loving and creative group of hardy survivors, a great evening was enjoyed by all. We ended up with blind-folded bowling and bank-shot bowling to maintain tight competition among the leaders. Roger Penske dropped by, as usual, to hand out prizes. Or at least it was a vague resemblance of “The Captain” — a guy wearing one of those old-fashioned racing caps from the 1980’s with the three-story-high space in front for the sponsor’s logo, in this case Marlboro.

What surprised me was the lack of discussion about the F1 season relative to years past. In a year of disparate directions among the fantasy Grand Prix participants, we did not have as many race mornings in front of the TV together as usual, so maybe it was a matter of catching up on the latest developments in our lives.

Or perhaps everybody’s on the same page when it comes to F1, ready to move on from the disapointment and betrayals of Stepneygate. It was, after all, a season in which it was difficult to hail the champion or commiserate with the runners-up. Even the admirers of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen offered that the late-season success was justice for bad luck in seasons past as opposed to an exuberant display of virtuosity comprising one of the greatest comebacks in F1 history.

I believe the long view of history will confirm that a decision by the World Motor Sport Council to aggressively pursue the matter of design documents stolen from Ferrari. But the same cast of time will find the FIA was in part to blame by not imposing stiff penalties in response to incidents in the previous seasons, albeit relatively minor by comparison.

Participants had not fully received the prior message from the international judicial system that such illegal activities carry serious consequences. For its part, the FIA had not made it clear industrial espionage was outside the realm of sports competition, much less the creed of self-built solutions sustained over the long haul by F1. So there was no choice but to go forward and prosecute this case aggressively.

I’ve come to this conclusion in part due to a long conversation with Nick Craw, the U.S. representative at the FIA. As an elected member of the WMSC for several years, Craw provided a window on the efforts to get to the bottom of what went on in the case of Stepneygate. In sum, there was just too much evidence to ignore.

Perhaps the best evidence were the digital photos of a distraught Ron Dennis during the debacle. The McLaren team owner has been betrayed by the usual cut-and-thrust politics that are the price of admission in F1 over the years, this case included, without ever appearing so disintegrated. He’s had feuding drivers before and in-house intrigues. But this, documents stolen from a rival?

From Ferrari to McLaren, from doomed Ferrari mechanic Nigel Stepney to McLaren’s Fernando Alonso (who behaved in less than champion form), from Max Moseley and Bernie Ecclestone to the members of the WMSC — they all made their choices in this tawdry tale.

As for the Renault case, once again the FIA’s inaction in the past means the sport needs to go forward from the McLaren case, already an ongoing can of worms, as the standard when it comes to copying rivals instead of turning over rocks throughout the entire neighborhood looking for past misdeeds to punish.

We bowled them all over for good measure, casting the characters to various manner of fates and associations. Now it’s the morning after instead of the mourning before.

Oh yes. We had a toast as usual at the end of the evening. I suggested a “Quaker meeting” variety in which any of us could speak up as we raised our glasses and then found myself strangely silent.

So here’s to 2008. With Raikkonen, the departed Alonso and McLaren’s second-year man Lewis Hamilton on different teams and everybody out for blood, it should be one helluva year.

Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com