2013 falls into place: an array of last year's executive excess, financial failings and baleful blunders. In other words, business as usual.

• Author: Campbell, Spencer
• Position: FEATURE - Michael Waltrip Racing Inc loses its deal with Napa Auto Parts (Burlington, Vermont - Robert McElreath gets restraining order - Duke Energy Corp. fined for violating birds protection

Fair-weather sponsor

Michael Waltrip Racing Inc. lost its sponsorship deal with NAPA Auto Parts after it got busted manipulating the finish of a race. One of the Cornelius-based team's drivers spun out to prevent a driver from a different team from winning in Richmond, Va. The Atlanta-based car-parts supplier--which had backed the namesake owner since 2001--could no longer endorse the team because it "believes in fair play."

Attorney General Buford T. Justice

Last summer, N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper got a restraining order against Robert McElreath and his businesses, which restored Pontiac Trans Ams to look like the ride Burt Reynolds' character drives in Smokey and the Bandit. The Buncombe County man allegedly received more than $2.2 million for work that was never suitably finished. "We want to stop bandits from making off with people's money," Cooper quipped.

For the birds

In November, Duke Energy Renewables agreed to pay $1 million in fines and restitution related to the deaths of 14 golden eagles over three years at two wind farms in Wyoming. The unregulated arm of Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp. also paid for radar to detect when the birds--not endangered but shielded by the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act--fly near its turbines.

Try getting that through the eye of a needle

Local media broke the story in October that Charlotte preacher Steven Furtick was building a $1.6 million,16,000-square-foot house in Waxhaw. His megachurch's chief financial officer tried to quell the hell raised by noting that only 8,400 square feet of it will be heated, and Furtick, who placed the 19-acre property in a trust, told his congregation: "It's not that great a house." Graceland--Elvis Presley's mansion in Memphis, Tenn.--is 17,552 square feet (though its website doesn't say how much of that is heated).

She had her heart set on the car but got probation

A former Fayetteville postal worker was found guilty of workers' compensation fraud in September, her deceit undone by an appearance on The Price is Right television show in 2009. Cathy Cashwell claimed a shoulder injury prevented her from lifting mail into trucks, but it didn't hinder her spinning the big wheel. Twice.

Crash-test dummy

In November, a private contractor working on the N.C. Department of Transportation's traffic-alert network mistakenly made an in-house test message public. The dispatch warned drivers of a fictional accident in Raleigh, the cause of which was trifold...