I'm kind of glad that the ESPN cameras only caught a brief glimpse of Elliot Sadler's crash at Pocono last Sunday. It was the kind of wreck that in years past would have been the occasion for mourning. Thank goodness for the HANS device and the design of the new NASCAR Cup car. They were the main reasons that Sadler was able to walk away from a crash that was the hardest recorded since NASCAR started mounting "black box" data recorders in the cars. I'm sorry I can't say as much for the track safety at Pocono, which has been a subject of debate for some time now. While other tracks have updated their safety measures in the last few years, Pocono has lagged sadly behind. The track has vowed to make improvements, such as SAFER barriers on the inside of the track. If it doesn't happen by next year's first race, NASCAR should look seriously at moving the Pocono races elsewhere.
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Speaking of moving races elsewhere, NASCAR CEO Brian France, speaking at Indianapolis, indicated that there were some major changes coming down for the 2011 Cup schedule. Some details, some as yet unconfirmed, have begun to leak out about the realignment. It appears that Chicagoland Speedway will be on the Chase schedule for 2011 with the opening race of NASCAR's "playoff" season. Atlanta will lose one of its two races, and it looks like Bruton Smith's Kentucky Speedway, after years of wrangling, will finally get a Cup date. Kansas Speedway looks like it will get a second Cup date while the second dates at Auto Club Speedway and Martinsville are in jeopardy. Other possible changes: Texas may move one of its races to a night race; Phoenix may be earlier in the schedule, perhaps the second race after Daytona. But the rumored second race at Las Vegas, to end the season, will remain at Homestead-Miami.
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This weekend NASCAR is at the Watkins Glen road course, and as usual, the field will include a bunch of road course "ringers." This group hasn't put one in the win column lately, partly because the Cup regulars have gotten a lot better at road racing, and partly because the ringers seldom get top-flight equipment. That may change this weekend, as road-racing ace Boris Said will be in the #83 Red Bull Toyota. Said will be joined by fellow road course specialists Patrick Carpentier, Ron Fellows, Andy Lally, P.J. Jones, and Tony Ave. Qualifying is at 8 a.m. today.
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And later today former Indy 500 winner and F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve will take to the track in the Nationwide race in the #32 Braun Racing Toyota. Villeneuve put on a spectacular show earlier this year in the Road America round, so look for some fireworks out of the Canadian ace at the Glen today. He will be joined by another F1 veteran, Nelson Piquet Jr., making his Nationwide debut after a number of runs in the Camping World Truck series. Said, Fellows, and Ave are all doing double duty this weekend, and will be in today's Nationwide race as well.
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Hot August nights is winding down this weekend, so today and Sunday will be your last chance to check out the thousands of classic cars that flock to Reno annually. There has been a great deal of hullabaloo this year about the show's planned expansion to Long Beach, and I have to shake my head at some of the comments I saw on TV from the participants. Folks, nobody is going to make you go to Long Beach, and Hot August Nights is not leaving Reno. HAN board member Chris Kilian is a personal friend of mine, and she told me that the whole impetus of the expansion to Long Beach is to get a presence in southern California, an area that has historically sent only a few cars to the Reno event. Unfortunately, HAN's expansion to Lake Tahoe last weekend did hurt our own local show, the Silver Dollar Car Classic. I was at Mills Park last Saturday for the show and shine, and participation by both entrants and spectators was down significantly from previous years.