The short season at Reno-Fernley Raceway's 3/8 mile clay oval just got shorter, as the track has announced cancellation of the remainder of the 2010 schedule to work on a full program for 2011.
I spoke with owner Rich Cable about the situation, and he told me that they knew going in that a late start and Friday night dates were working against them.
However, part of the effort was to gauge interest for 2011, and he and his team feel that fan and driver enthusiasm indicates that can put on a successful program next year.
That being said, the
Sept. 18 stock car/modified show may be back on the schedule for this year.
Cable said he would let me know about that next week.
•••
If you missed the debut episode of "Changing Lanes" on the BET network last Wednesday, you will have more chances to catch up with Carson City's Mackena Bell on the show. Seven more episodes are scheduled to run on consecutive Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Bell is one of NASCAR's Drive for Diversity racers that are featured in the show, which is patterned loosely on the old MTV "Real World" series.
We see the racers going through their paces to earn 10 coveted spots on the 2010 D4D team, where they will have fully funded rides in NASCAR's feeder series.
•••
The IndyCar series is in the final few races of its season, and the points race tightened up last Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway.
Points leader Will Power, not considered a top oval racer, proved that he's actually pretty good at turning left, dominating much of the race until his Penske crew made an uncharacteristic mistake that found him three laps short on fuel.
A splash and go stop moved him to 14th at the finish and gave the win to Dario Franchitti, whose team made a brilliant call to double-stint tires and get out front.
Franchitti whittled Power's points lead to only 23 with three races to go.
Power will start second in tonight's round (5 p.m.) at Kentucky Speedway alongside the surprising Ed Carpenter, who won his first IndyCar pole while Franchitti will start eleventh.
After Kentucky, only the Sept. 18 race at Motegi Japan and the Oct. 2 season finale at Homestead-Miami remain.
Tonight's race and the Motegi round may be livened up by the presence of open-wheel bad boy Paul Tracy, who will drive for Dreyer and Reinbold in both of the upcoming races.
NASCAR's Sprint Cup series is back in action this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, with no further breaks until the season finale at Homestead-Miami November 21. With only two races remaining to get into the Chase for the Championship, time is running out for Kasey Kahne and Mark Martin, who are 100 and 101 points behind 12th place Clint Bowyer, the final Chase qualifier as of now. Bowyer has to have a really bad result in one or both of the remaining races for either Kahne or Martin to unseat him. The Childress team has all three of their cars in the Chase, Roush and Hendrick both have three out of four in it, Gibbs Racing has two cars in the top 12, and Kurt Busch is the lone Dodge for Penske Racing. Interestingly enough, fully half the drivers currently in the Chase have not won this season.
Another interesting thing to watch for this weekend is whether Kyle Busch can keep his win streak alive. He has currently won the last four races he has entered in NASCAR's top three divisions (Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Camping World Trucks), adding a truck win last weekend to his triple victory performance at Bristol. If he wins tonight's Nationwide race at Atlanta, it will give him five in a row, and six if he can also win tomorrow's Cup race. I can hear teeth grinding already.