Will Brian France, CEO of NASCAR, be part of the management team for the new NFL franchise in Los Angeles? (Credit: NASCAR photo.)
By Lou Modestino
The brawls following the Charlotte Motor Speedway Chase race was the result of the heat being turned up on the drivers to stay in The Chase. With Talladega coming up this weekend, there could be a lot more fists flying. Here’s what it looks like going into Degga: Logano, Kyle Busch, Charlotte winner Harvick, Newman, Edwards, Gordon, Hamlin and Kahne are the top eight. After Talladega: Kenseth, Kaselowski, Johnson and Junior could be eliminated.
We’ve seen sports news reports that the Los Angeles mayor expects to announcement that a new NFL franchise will add a team to his city very soon. We know that NASCAR CEO Brian France has stated that he’d like to be part of that management team. Considering that Brian has signed two big NASCAR TV rights contracts, a move by NASCAR’s chief executive now may be the right time for him. He’ll leave NASCAR with big TV rights money for several years. Unfortunately, the TV ratings for The Chase to the Nextel Cup, his creation, haven’t kept pace with the money increase courtesy of Fox and the NBC sports networks.
Short track racing around the country, which feeds NASCAR’s top four divisions, is going through some anxiety of it’s own. Paved tracks in the northeast has seen the attendance and car counts shrink rapidly. We know of three tracks in New England that will be going on the auction block very soon.
On the dirt tracks, it appeared that dirt segment of short track racing was still holding up in comparison to the paved tracks. However, all that is changing. According to a revealing piece in weekly Area Auto Racing News of Trenton, NJ, Lebanon Valley (NY) Speedway owner Howie Commmander tells of some major contraction already under way in the World Racing DIRT Series in the northeast.
According to the savvy track promoter, Commander claims that the Big Block Modifieds have been on the way out for the past few years, specifically shrinking fields at weekly tracks. Commander and his associates, World Racing DIRT, have already put plans in place to rebuild that huge segment of motor sports. It will take a few years for this fix to come to fruition. The idea is to make all of the teams equal. He’s talking about crate (spec) engines which has created controversy whenever that formula has been applied. It hinders the teams that can afford the expensive power plants.
Watching the NBC Sports airing of the Russian Grand Prix and the subsequent podium trophy presentations by Russian President Putin was a sham. In our opinion, it was a sellout for money as the Russian President is looking for legitimacy on a world stage. Considering what’s happening in the Ukraine, Formula 1 could care less where the sanction fees and prize money comes from.