Roger Diez: Green flag almost ready to drop on 2011season

The 2011 racing season kicks off next weekend at both ends of the country. At Daytona, the Rolex 24 hour endurance race runs from Saturday into Sunday, and here in the west the Toyota All-Star races will run Friday and Saturday at Toyota Speedway in Irwindale. Friday night's feature at Irwindale will be the Super Late Models, with the Late Models and the K&N Pro series taking to the track Saturday night. Both Daytona and Irwindale will be televised on SPEED.

•••

Yesterday morning I sat in on a press conference at Daytona via telephone, listening to NASCAR President Mike Helton, Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby, and Competition Director Robin Pemberton talk about upcoming changes for 2011. Unfortunately, nothing particularly substantive was revealed. The proposal to change the points system for all three national series (Cup, Nationwide, and Camping World Trucks) will probably happen, but the details still are being finalized. Basically, a race winner will get 43 points (36 for trucks), and points will decrease by one per position, with the last place car getting a single point. Bonus points and other incentives for winning races still are to be determined. Helton said this change has been discussed with team owners and drivers since last summer. The final version should be announced next week.

•••

The one thing that has been finalized is that drivers can only run for points in one of the three national series. This means that drivers running for the Cup championship will be able to run in the other two series, but will not score driver points. Owner points will be awarded, however. Series sponsor Nationwide had wanted to "grandfather" a few drivers (notably Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski) into the points race, but NASCAR decided to make a clean break. We still will see a good number of Cup drivers in Nationwide cars and Camping World trucks, but Helton said the focus would be on the developing drivers in those series. They are still working on whether and how to award rookie points to Nationwide and Truck drivers who run part-time in Cup.

•••

There also will be some schedule changes for 2011. NASCAR will continue to use standardized start times for Cup races, and there will be more Saturday qualifying. Pemberton said the Saturday qualifying weekends will not be impound races, however. There also will be changes to the Chase format, but again Helton indicated that the final version is not yet ready to be revealed. Speculation has it that the top 10 points holders after 26 races will qualify, plus the two drivers not among the top 10 who have won the most races.

•••

Pemberton and Darby also addressed some technical issues. NASCAR will continue to run carburetors at all 2011 points races, but testing on a fuel injection system is going well, and we may see NASCAR move to injection in 2012. Darby talked about the 2013 model stock car, which is a move to get more manufacturer identity into the cars. He said NASCAR has been working closely with Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge and Toyota, and that the manufacturers are very excited about the project. Also in the works is a new closed-loop fueling system that will minimize spillage and vapor emissions. Darby also said NASCAR is very happy with the new ethanol fuel being used in competition. Pemberton was asked about the smaller restrictor plate for Daytona, and said he was happy with the speeds on the new track surface. Helton said the biggest challenges facing NASCAR in the coming year are the economy and rising gas prices.

•••

NASCAR is not the only sanctioning body making changes for 2011. The IndyCar Series announced last week that it will go to double-file restarts at all oval races, beginning with the Indy 500 in May. Single-file restarts still will be used on street and road courses. Now if we could just get series chief steward Brian Barnhart to go back to the traditional three-wide start at Indy, I would be a lot happier.