NASCAR Takes Heat for, and From, Schedule

NASCAR fans shouldn’t have to worry anymore about getting sunstroke at California Speedway.

In announcing its 2005 Nextel Cup schedule Friday -- the most controversial in the 56-year history of the stock car racing sanctioning body -- NASCAR slotted the Auto Club 500, traditionally a May race, on Feb. 27, the week after the Daytona 500.

At the eighth running of that race two weeks ago, temperatures neared 100 degrees and about 1,000 spectators were treated for heat-related problems at the track’s care center and first-aid stations. Scores more missed significant portions of the race, having left the stands in search of relief from the sun.

“If it’s 100 degrees at the end of February, that would be shocking to us all,” said Bill Miller, California Speedway president. “Temperatures in late February should be conducive to good horsepower.”

The track’s second Nextel Cup race, the Pop Secret 500, will remain on the schedule as a late afternoon-early evening race -- the heat should be dissipating by then -- the day before Labor Day, Sept. 4. Busch series races will be run on both weekends and a Craftsman truck series race is scheduled the Friday night before the Auto Club 500.

NASCAR cast its eyes west in drawing up the 2005 schedule, awarding second races to both Phoenix International Raceway and, in partial settlement of a lawsuit, to Texas Motor Speedway in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Phoenix will get a spring race, April 23, to go with its traditional second-to-last race on the schedule, Nov. 13. Texas gets a fall date, Nov. 6, to complement its spring race, April 17.

Thus, both tracks will have races in the final 10, when the leading drivers will be contesting the playoff-style “Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup.” California Speedway’s races are not among the last 10.

The lawsuit in question was filed in 2002 by Francis Ferko, a shareholder in Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports Inc., claiming that NASCAR had breached agreements in not awarding a second date to Texas Motor Speedway.

NASCAR Chairman Brian France acknowledged during a news conference at Richmond, Va., where Nextel Cup drivers will race in the Pontiac Performance 400 tonight, that the second date at Texas was part of a settlement but added, “ ... It fits in perfectly with our realignment plans.”

Of the western market, France said, “Well, obviously, it’s underserved, from our view. The population base in Los Angeles, second-largest market. Phoenix is the 16th- to 17th-largest market in the country. It’s proven.... Texas has a huge interest level in NASCAR Nextel Cup series racing. They’ve proved it for a number of years.

“I don’t think it’s any secret that the demand is there, the population is there, the race fans are there. We’re going to take our events there....

“The California Speedway will have the first of its two events moved ... to Feb. 27 ... one week after the season-opening Daytona 500. So we’re going from the biggest race of the season straight to the second-biggest market in the country.”

Moving west, though, means, moving some races out of the Southeast, NASCAR’s birthplace.

The first race after the Daytona 500 had traditionally belonged to the North Carolina Speedway at Rockingham, N.C. Rockingham is no longer on the Nextel Cup schedule.

Darlington Raceway at Darlington, S.C., NASCAR’s first superspeedway and home of the Southern 500 every fall since 1950, lost its Labor Day weekend date to California Speedway a year ago, then Friday lost its fall date altogether. NASCAR will race once at Darlington next year, on May 7, the night before Mother’s Day. Cup racing has traditionally not been conducted on Easter and Mother’s Day weekends.

In 1996, NASCAR ran six Cup races at three tracks in North Carolina and two at Darlington. Next year, there will be two races in North Carolina, both at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte, and the one race at Darlington.

“I’d say we’re disappointed the events [at Rockingham and Darlington] didn’t work as well as they work in California and other markets,” France said.

“Listen, the Southeast is ... important -- it’s historically where we started. We’re never going to forget that. We’ve got so many traditions.... I mean, goodness gracious, we are not going to forget the Southeast, and no one should mistake that.”

*

International Speedway Corp., part of the NASCAR empire, announced that it would close Nazareth Speedway in Nazareth, Pa., after this season.

In another development, as part of the settlement of the Texas lawsuit against NASCAR, North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham will be bought by Speedway Motorsports Inc. for $100.4 million.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Westward Ho!

NASCAR, which not many years ago scheduled the majority of its races in Southeastern states, will attempt to increase its national appeal with nine races west of the Mississippi River in 2005:

Feb. 27 California Speedway

March 13 Las Vegas Motor Speedway

April 17 Texas Motor Speedway

April 23 Phoenix International Speedway

June 26 Infineon Raceway, Sonoma

Sept. 4 California Speedway

Oct. 9 Kansas Speedway

Nov. 6 Texas Motor Speedway

Nov. 13 Phoenix International Speedway