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Chase Weekend at Chicagoland Speedway to be a Tripleheader in 2011!
Chicagoland Speedway will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in style. In 2011, the speedway will be hosting the first race in the Nascar Chase for the Sprint Cup and also a tripleheader weekend. The weekend will feature the Camping World Truck Series on Friday September 16th, the Nationwide Series on Saturday the 17th, and the Sprint Cup Series on Sunday the 18th. This will be the first time in the tracks history to host all three of Nascar’s top series on one weekend.
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Also on June 4, 2011, the Nationwide Series will invade Chicagoland Speedway for the first of its two stops to Chicagoland in 2011. This looks to be in conjunction with the IZOD Indycar Series, but their schedule hasn’t been finalized yet.
CLICK HERE to see the Schedule!
Post your thoughts below!
Kevin Harvick Wins at Michigan, Clinches Spot in Chase and Gets New Sponsor!
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Kevin Harvick had one of the dominate cars of the afternoon at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday. He took the lead from Denny Hamlin with 11 laps remaining in the Carfax 400. Harvick then cruised to the victory hoping he had enough fuel in the tank to get to the end. Fuel strategy came into play when there was a caution with 33 laps to go and Harvick didn’t pit and was hoping to get to the finish without running out of fuel. Kevin led 60 laps and extended his points lead over Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin.
Kevin Harvick and the number 29 Shell/Pennzoil team were the first team to clinch a spot in the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup. Harvick is now just racing for wins to get the bonus points for when the Chase starts. For each win in the regular season, that driver gets 10 points added to their points when the Chase starts and the points are reset.
Shell/Pennzoil announced a month or so ago that they would be leaving the number 29 team and Richard Childress Racing, and going to sponsor Kurt Busch at Penske Racing. Richard Childress has been looking for over a month now for a new sponsor of his points leading team. Rumors have been going around the garage saying that Budweiser was going to leave Richard Petty Motorsports and Kasey Kahne’s number 9 team. Tuesday morning, a press conference has been called at RCR to announce that Budweiser is indeed going to sponsor Kevin Harvick and the number 29 team in 2011 and beyond. No timetable had been announced yet, but that should be revealed soon.
CLICK HERE to listen to the Happy Hour on At the Track Radio.
Kasey Kahne on the Pole for the Carfax 400 at Michigan on Sunday!
Kasey Kahne drove the Budweiser Ford to the pole position for Sunday’s Carfax 400 at the Michigan International Speedway. Kahne who is leaving Richard Petty Motorsports after the season to join Red Bull Racing in 2011, had a lap just two thousandth quicker than future 2012 teammate Jimmy Johnson.
CLICK HERE for the starting lineup!
Make sure you tune on Sunday afternoon for live flag to flag coverage of the Carfax 400 from Michigan starting at 11:30am on Chicago’s Racing Station, US99.5!
Chicagoland Speedway is in the Chase!
(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
Tuesday afternoon Chicagoland Speedway held a press conference in downtown Chicago to announce that they will host the first race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup in 2011. This race weekend will be September 16-18th, instead of the second weekend in July. The Spring Cup Series race will be Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday night like is has been the last two seasons. Nascar has been rumored to make many changes to the 2011 schedule. By taking away races from tracks that have two races, giving tracks two races that have only have had one, granting tracks dates that have never had one, and also shuffling dates for tracks all together.
Chicagoland Speedway will trade its July date for the weekend in September. Kentucky Super-speedway will finally be getting a Sprint Cup date after going through leaps and bounds to do so. They will most likely be getting the weekend Chicagoland vacated in July. Auto Club Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway will be loosing one of their two dates to make room for Kentucky getting a race and Kansas Speedway add another race to their schedule. The final schedule for the Sprint Cup Series is due out later this week or early next week.
Two years ago lights were installed at the track in Joliet and for the last two LifeLock.com 400′s, its been held under the lights on Saturday night. Next years Chase race will be during the day on Sunday afternoon. To me,this is a bit of a risk with the sports scene in Chicago, with Bear nation coming to life with the start of the NFL season and possibly having one or two baseball teams in the heat of pennant races. Competing with the Chicago Bears in this town is very tough on Sunday afternoon. I hope that with this race being the first leg of Nascar’s playoff system, that will help fill the grandstands at Chicagoland Speedway. During the press conference Monday morning, Track President Craig Rust, sounded pretty confident that there won’t be a problem competing with the Bears and the NFL.
One issue that bugs me about Chicagoland Speedway is that if you walk up to the ticket window on the morning of the Sprint Cup Race(or last year the evening of) and want to buy a ticket to the Sprint Cup Series race only. You had to pay for the ticket to the Nationwide Series race as well, even though you were there after the race was over. I would think that would drive people right back to their cars and on their way home. You want to put people in the seats and making them pay for a race that they didn’t even come for is just. Well leaving you scratch your head. As a huge fan of Chicagoland Speedway, because it is in our back yard and having a place to go watch racing, I hope this is a huge success. Don’t get me wrong, I just hope they prove my doubts wrong.
Here is the complete audio from the press conference…
The Chase To Begin In Chicago In 2011
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The “Chase to the Sprint Cup” for NASCAR in 2011 will begin at the Chicagoland Speedway next fall, NASCAR announced today.
The start of the 10-race Sprint Cup Series playoff will take place on the weekend of September 16th through the 18th, and back to racing during the day. The race will take place on Sunday afternoon.
“It’s a great traditional sports town and sponsorship opportunities are big here,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s senior vice president of operations at a news conference. “We also looked it as a chance to reinvent Chicago again and give it a nice kick and push the races back to the traditional (Sunday) spot.
“We felt like there were a lot of positives when you talk about starting the playoffs in Chicago.”
Chicagoland Speedway will no longer have a race weekend in July, and this may also force the IRL to move its Chicagoland weekend as well.
Could there be a Chase for the Sprint Cup Race at Chicagoland Speedway next year????
(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
Thursday afternoon Speedtv.com revealed that Chicagoland Speedway COULD host the first race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup in 2011. Sources close to Nascar told Speed that the tentative schedule could have a big shake up and Chicagoland Speedway would move its date from July to September. Nascar is in need of a change, with the interest of the sport declining, both in the grandstands and also in TV ratings. Sources say the 2011 schedule will be released on August 18th, but nobody is for certain, but it is highly anticipated to see what changes Nascar has made.
Here is a link to the story on Speedtv.com.
Nascar’s Ruling on Carl and Brad K’s Altercation
Nascar took an extra day to look at the incident between Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski at the end of Nationwide Series Race at Gateway on Saturday night. Nascar usually come out on Tuesday with penalties, but it wasn’t until Wednesday that Nascar laid out the ruling. Carl Edwards was docked 60 championship driver points from the Nationwide Series and was fined $25,000. Both drivers were placed on probation until the end of the year.
To me this is just a slap on the wrist for Carl Edwards. Wrecking a driver coming to the checkered flag to win a race is just wrong. There’s a difference between rubbing each other coming to the flag but flat-out spinning someone to win is wrong. From what I have read over the past few days, people are very upset about this. People were hoping Nascar would come down hard on Carl. But this doesn’t work at all. There were a lot of negative comments to Carl on his personal facebook page over the last few days as well to show him all of their displeasure in his racing.
Nascar’s ”have at it boys” mentality is just getting out of hand. There has to be a line here, and I am hoping that killing someone isn’t that line.
It will be very interesting to see if anything comes from this at Indianapolis this weekend!
Here is the official statement from Nascar. CLICK HERE
Please let me know what you think by posting a comment!
Photo Gallery: Around Chicagoland Speedway on Race Day
Here is a gallery of photos that I took while wandering around Champions Park at Chicagoland Speedway and more before the LifeLock.com 400 on Saturday. In these pictures you will see Drew Walker and Trish Biondo greeting fans, Drew’s interview with Kurt Busch, Cowboy Troy, Pat Green, Duncan Keith, and more. Enjoy!
