No Cup, no problem

While the NASCAR Sprint Cup crowd got a much-needed break last Sunday, there still was a lot of racing last weekend. You saw a great NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race from Chicagoland Speedway Friday night. Kyle Busch and Todd Bodine had a great battle right to the finish.

The IndyCar crowd was also at Chicagoland and they had one heck of a race. I think I heard it was something like the 17th-closest finish in IndyCar history with the winner being determined by mere hundredths of thousandths of a second. Sunday then brought us a Nationwide Series road race from Montreal. On top of all that, they had motorcycle racing at Indy, too.

There was also an F1 race. It was pretty entertaining, too. Lewis Hamilton is one of the greatest road racers in the rain that I have ever seen. He actually made it look pretty easy.

Now back to Montreal and the Nationwide race. Obviously guys who are road racers have the advantage at a track like that. They enter and exit the corners different. They are also a lot smoother on the brakes and the gears. Now Montreal is an incredibly hard racetrack. It’s physically demanding and it takes a lot of concentration. Sunday, I think they had one stretch of like 40 green-flag laps, and that’s pretty grueling on a road course.

There was a point Sunday when I wasn’t real sure they were ever going to finish the race. There was wreck after wreck after wreck. That had to be really frustrating at times for the drivers. I really thought Robby Gordon was going to pull the win off coming from the back to the front.

I actually was hoping he would. Look, Robby is a rebel. He does things his way. Robby marches to the beat of his own drum and quite honestly that’s probably why he doesn’t drive for anyone other than himself. He’s an incredibly smart guy. Just like in business as in his racing, he likes to do things his way. Having his own team certainly makes all the sense in the world for him.

So I was hoping he would pull it off. Now I was watching the race from home and doing the math. The boy needed to pit. He had a couple shots there late in the race to duck in and grab some fuel and salvage a decent finish. See, though, Robby didn’t come all the way to Montreal to salvage a decent finish. He came to win. He had an impressive run. I hated to see him run out of fuel, but at the same time, I knew he was going to.

So yes, there wasn’t a Cup race this past weekend, but that was no problem. There was a lot of great racing in the Truck, IndyCar, F1 and Nationwide races for everyone.

Now if it were me laying out the 2010 schedule, I wouldn’t have put the off weekend for the Cup folks, where it fell last weekend. I would have given them a break following the Richmond race and before the start of the Chase for the Sprint Cup at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Not only would that have given the teams a much needed rest, but it would also help build excitement, anticipation and hype for the start of the 10-race 2010 Chase.

In truth, and yes I know the team members will fuss at me about this, but we really don’t need the break at all. Let’s face it, you have high school, college and NFL football starting. We need to keep the momentum going and keep the fans tuning in.

We will have all three of our major touring series back in action this weekend. The trucks will be at Kentucky Speedway on Friday. The Nationwide and Cup cars will be at Atlanta Motor Speedway during the Labor Day weekend.

The next weekend, we have the last race of the regular season, at Richmond International Raceway. That’s always a very exciting race, not only from the standpoint of who wins, but even more so of who is or isn’t in the Chase. I have said it many times before, Richmond in September is one of the most exciting races we run with it being the cutoff for the Chase. There’s a lot at stake in that race. I love going to it and will be there working for SPEED that weekend.

OH BY THE WAY - I also want to extend condolences to the Beaty and Mauldin families. Mae Beaty was Dick Beaty’s wife and she passed away on the 19th. Dick, of course, was my buddy and a longtime NASCAR official. Mae and my wife, Stevie, were close friends and so we mourn her passing. Billy Mauldin Sr. passed away last week. Billy Mauldin Jr. runs Motor Racing Outreach (MRO) for us so I wanted Billy to know that we are thinking and praying for him and his family during this sad time.