Reno-Fernley oval closes again

Once again, Northern Nevada racers and race fans are short one track. Nevada Motorsports Productions, the operators of the clay oval at Reno-Fernley Raceway have ceased operations and will not re-open this season. I received an e-mail from promoter Ty Erquiaga detailing the problems.

He wrote, "Our challenges were as follows: a major sponsor backing out, a string of rain outs, poor car counts, and a primary challenge was attempting to make this a Friday night program."

There was also the problem of mixing in the occasional Saturday night motorcycle and mud bog show, which was confusing to some fans. A perusal of the community message boards at nevadaracer.com reveals the level of disappointment and anger from racers, fans, and sponsors at the closure. Meanwhile, the road course and drag strip at Reno-Fernley Raceway continue to operate with a full program.

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With Fernley gone, I plan to be out at Rattlesnake Raceway in Fallon this evening for a full show of stock cars and 360 Sprints, featuring a Hobby Stock 50-lapper. I'm looking forward to my first trip to Rattlesnake Raceway, and to seeing some familiar local racers out there.

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Speaking of local racers, Mackena Bell continues to improve in the AC Delco Super Late Model division at Toyota Speedway in Irwindale, Calif. Her most recent outing was a doubleheader on July 11. She scored a pair of top-10 finishes, a 10th and a seventh, for her best Super Late Model finish to date. The previous weekend was less productive for Dallas Colodny in the Auto Club Late Model division at Irwindale. After qualifying fourth and running as high as second in the race, Colodny was put into the wall 10 laps from the end. He limped his damaged car home, finishing on the lead lap in 13th. Both drivers have a bye this weekend, and Colodny will return to action July 25.

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The drug-testing situation with NASCAR and Jeremy Mayfield just gets uglier and uglier. I'm not going to go into detail here, as there are volumes already written and broadcast on the subject. But the whole thing has deteriorated into a "he said-they said" shouting match, with Mayfield taking private tests that turn up clean and NASCAR conducting tests that show positive for meth.

Unfortunately, Jeremy is getting more and more irrational, as evidenced by his rant to Buddy Baker on a NASCAR radio talk show. NASCAR's typical reluctance to reveal details of its drug testing policy (or any policy, for that matter) makes the sanctioning body suspect. It's just an unfortunate situation, and nobody is going to come out of it a winner.

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On a more pleasant note, we're looking at a very exciting Chase to the Championship for the NASCAR Sprint Cup series. Every week drivers are moving up or down in the top 12 order, and in and out of the last three or four Chase positions.

Chevy drivers have the mathematical edge at this point, with six of the 12 Chase spots. Three of those six are Hendrick team cars (Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Mark Martin), two are Hendrick-supplied (Stewart-Haas teammates Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman), with Juan Pablo Montoya the lone Ganassi/DEI Chaser. Dodge has a pair of cars in the Chase at the moment: Penske driver Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne from Richard Petty Motorsports. Toyota is represented by Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch, and Roush-Fenway drivers Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth are the two Ford pilots in the Chase.

The three at the bottom of the Chase order (Kyle Busch, Martin, and Kenseth) are within three points of one another and Greg Biffle is only 10 points out of the Chase. David Reutimann, Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers, Jeff Burton, and Marcos Ambrose all have a mathematical chance of making the Chase, but with only seven races to go until the top 12 are locked in, they need to run up front all the way.

Will Kyle Busch self-destruct as he did last year? Will Mark Martin finally win his first championship? Will Jimmie Johnson make history with four in a row?

Stay tuned, it's about to get interesting.