Updated April 9
Happy Easter weekend. The Sprint Cup Series is on hiatus, but our readers still have lots of topics on their minds, including more thoughts on the shifting NASCAR schedule, the shutting down of the famed No. 8, boring races at Texas Motor Speedway and the start of the 2009 Indy Racing League season.
From: salisb
Here's an idea for the NASCAR schedule -- drop the road course and let Kentucky add a race and get a second date for Las Vegas. That would work fine.
You won't get an argument out of me if Sonoma and Watkins Glen were replaced on the schedule with two oval track races. In fact, I think you might be on to something here: When the parent companies of both those tracks -- SMI and ISC -- want to bring dates to Kentucky and also to Kansas, the road circuits, which can't fit nearly as many people in the grandstands, might finally go away.
From: vbh12
What a sad day it is to see the No. 8 shelved all due to the lack of foresight and the stubbornness of Teresa Earnhardt. She is not a very good business person by any means and the business her late husband built, which at one time was one of the premier teams in the sport, is down to nothing.
The economy has much to do with what happened to the former DEI. Between Chip Ganassi Racing and the old Earnhardt team, the newly merged operation has shrunk from seven cars a year ago to two. It is hard to believe, given the names associated with each entity, but performance dictates the business of NASCAR and the results have not been good on that front for a long time.
From: flix
What race at Texas were you watching? For the most part the 500 miles was a long boring parade and any close racing came immediately after a restart. Once the green flag laps started piling up, the field got strung out and it was like watching paint dry. The COT on these mid-sized tracks just does not work.
I will agree with you that there were stretches of Sunday's race that were a bit boring when the field did get strung out. But there was some good racing near the front of the field at times and the pit drama at the end made it an interesting race. I contend a 400-mile race would ramp things up and stop drivers from simply making laps some of the day. Tightening up these races would make every lap count and the excitement level higher.
From: 14g
I thought the IRL opener at St. Pete was a very good race and it was nice to see some of these younger drivers like Ryan Hunter-Reay and Justin Wilson compete with underfunded teams. Any chance we'll see an upset or two along the way and not every win coming from one of the super teams?
Absolutely, and I think Sunday was a great example of that possibility. Even though a Penske car won, as you point out the Vision Racing and Dale Coyne operations, both of which came together only days and weeks before the season was set to begin, were competitive and proved we will see one of those young drivers roll into Victory Lane before the season is over.
