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Daytona 500 to be moved to November? This week, sources within NASCAR told me [CTR] there has been closed door discussions to move the date of the Daytona 500, to November. Apparently, NASCAR is intrigued by the idea of switching the dates of the season ending Homestead race with the season opening Daytona 500. The allure of ending the NASCAR season and crowning a new Nextel Cup champion at the sports biggest race is something the France family is strongly considering. NASCAR and the International Speedway Corporation own both tracks so a change of date would be easy to accomplish. For the past 25 years, NASCAR has led off the season in Daytona Beach, FL with the sports biggest race, the Daytona 500. In 2008, NASCAR will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Daytona 500 on February 17th for what may be the final time ever in the month of February. Sources said the late Bill France Jr. was very much against moving the Daytona 500 and felt that it would hurt the integrity of the sport. NASCAR does not intend to have a final decision regarding the date change until the end of the 2007 season.(CTR-Captain Thunder Racing)(7-5-2007)
IMO that's a good idea, I never understood running a race like that with all the testing involved to kick off a season. I seems alot of teams dump so much cash into one race while others always seemed to focus on the 500 just to flounder the next 5 races.
Wood Brothers comes to mind, through the 90's they always had a good 500 car and where nowhere to be found for the next ten races.
Now if the Bowl would think about moving the Mod Nats to the last race of the year I think it would also be better. No one wants to go to the bowl with all their new equipment and put 4-5 weeks on the motor in one day. Make it in Spetember-October when point races elsewhere are over and people have all winter to fix the car, not worry about racing the next week at their home track. But that's a whole nother subject.
I dont know how I would feel if they made the switch. Ending the year with nascars biggest race is a great idea, but i wonder if they would keep the same speedweeks schedule with time trails the week before, thursday twins, and the 500 on sunday. In my opinion half of what makes the 500 special is the month of testing, followed by speedweeks, would the 500 lose that if it went to a three day schedule.
I get the whole thing of moving the biggest race of the year to the last and championship deciding race of the season, but how many more changes are they going to make to tradition?
The more changes they make, the more old school fans and traditionlists they seem to alienate.
Allright here is my OPINION on all this. Speedweeks is meant to be in FEBRUARY. It ends a long off-season and has been a welcomed vaction from the snow and cold for many Northern race fans. Now if they move the race to November, how many of these fans will still attend?
Has NASCAR considered any of the other MAJOR impacts the move would cause. What will the affect be on the Daytona area economy? The Hotels, bars, stores, restaurants etc.count on the race fans money for those two weeks in February and will now lose all that revenue. Will it even be Speedweeks in November? Will they even run any races at Daytona in February now? What about the short tracks that usually run races during FEBRUARY Speedweeks. Tracks like Volusia and New Smyrna, how will this affect them. Where will pre-season testing be now?
The more NASCAR changes things lately, the more I like going fising on raceday.
Just my opinion. -WMT-
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NASCAR MODIFIEDS...WHERE IT ALL BEGAN. LET'S REMIND NASCAR OF THEIR ROOTS.
