2011 NASCAR Schedule rumors
08/10/10 Phoenix Int'l Raceway will announce that its Subway Fresh Fit 500 is moving from April to Feb. 27. The new date is "one week after the Daytona 500 – Sprint Cup's most important event – and is considered prestigious because it typically attracts increased national attention." PIR also "will continue to host the series' penultimate race" Arizona Republic
08/09/10 With the 2011 Sprint Cup schedule set to be released in the next couple of weeks, it is expected Chicagoland will open the Chase For The Sprint Cup, Auto Club Speedway apparently will lose one of its Cup races to Kansas and Kentucky will have a Saturday night date in July, according to sources who are familiar with the tentative schedule. Kansas will have a date in June for its regular-season Sprint Cup event. According to sources familiar with the tentative schedule:
• New Hampshire, which has been the weekend prior to the Independence Day race at Daytona, will have its first date go to mid-July. Kansas could go in that June slot or possibly a week earlier on Father's Day weekend with Infineon a week later. Kansas also could go in the first week of June and the Pocono race could be moved to later in the month.
• There is a shuffle of dates in the first seven weeks with Phoenix moving to the second race of the schedule and Auto Club Speedway going to the last weekend in March between Bristol and Martinsville.
• The other regular-season shuffles come mostly in June with the addition of Kansas and then July. Getting Chicagoland's July date the week after Daytona will be Kentucky, which will have a Saturday night Cup race July 9 as part of a Nationwide-Cup weekend. It was previously announced Atlanta would lose its March date, and that race is going to Kentucky, which has a news conference set for Tuesday.
• The rest of the schedule should be pretty much the same, except with Chicagoland opening the Chase in mid-September, followed by New Hampshire and Dover and then Kansas – the three tracks that have opened the Chase in recent years. Chicagoland has a news conference scheduled for Monday to formally announce its getting the first race of the Chase. Scene Daily
08/06/10 Look for ISC owned Kansas Speedway to get their long rumored 2nd Cup race in 2011 in the hopes of landing a Casino on the site. They cleared the last regulatory hurdle in February and the casino is expected to open early in 2012.International Speedway Corp., the track’s parent, and Penn National Gaming Inc. of Wyomissing, Pa., are partners in the venture. They’ll build and the casino for the Kansas Lottery, which will own the rights to the gambling and the gambling equipment — and claim a share of the revenues. Will the France family finally drop one of the races at tiny Martinsville for it, or will it replace the dropped Fontana race?
08/06/10 The Auto Club Speedway "will lose its slot" in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup next season, according to sources. The '11 Chase will open at Chicagoland Speedway, with New Hampshire Motor Speedway "moving from the opening Chase slot its held since 2004 to the second race" of the playoff. Auto Club will have "only one race" next season, with Phoenix Int'l Raceway "taking the week following the Daytona 500 and ACS moving sometime later in the season" SPEEDTV.com
08/06/10 WJOL has now confirmed that the NASCAR Chicagoland race will move to September, become the first Chase race of 2010, and will move to a Sunday. They also predict the IndyCar race will move to July.
08/06/10 WJOL in Chicago is reporting that the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Chicagoland will indeed move to September in 2011. It was July 11th this year. A move to September may preclude an IndyCar race running there in late August or early September. If true, this supports the rumors that there may be a complete divorce between the IRL and NASCAR's France family.
08/06/10 Multiple sources have told SPEED.com that Chicagoland Speedway will host the opening race to the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup, with New Hampshire Motor Speedway moving back to the second Chase race. Contacted for comment, Chicagoland officials neither confirmed nor denied its 2011 slot in the Chase. Elsewhere, the other dominoes have begun to fall for the 2011 Sprint Cup schedule, which sources tell SPEED.com will be released Aug. 18. Atlanta officials confirmed Thursday what had long been rumored – that it will host just one NASCAR Sprint Cup weekend next year.
Kentucky Speedway officials, meanwhile, have a press conference scheduled next week to announce that they will host a Cup race for the first time next season, likely getting a July date at the expense of Atlanta. Of course, Atlanta's traditional first race date is in March, indicating that there will be quite a bit of schedule juggling to come. But if Chicagoland's race moves to September and the Chase, that would free up a mid-July date for Kentucky to host its Cup race. Atlanta losing a date is a done deal. Kentucky Speedway picking up one is also a done deal. Kansas Speedway is nearly certain to get a second date, likely at the expense of Auto Club Speedway in Southern California, or perhaps Martinsville Speedway. Among the other possibilities for 2011:
• At least one of Texas's two races would be run at night. Texas will make its announcement Aug. 17 at the House of Blues in Dallas. A media release issued Thursday said the track would "reveal dramatic changes," and that France would be in attendance for the event.
• Phoenix would have an earlier slot on the schedule, perhaps moving up to as early as the second race of the year. Contacted by SPEED.com.
• A spokesperson for Dover confirmed that that track will have two Cup races next year, although no dates were announced.
• Although Las Vegas Motor Speedway has lobbied hard for a second date, specifically to host the season-ending race, the 2011 Sprint Cup season is expected to once again conclude at Homestead-Miami Speedway. SPEEDtv