I can’t wait for the traditional NASCAR Sprint Cup Labour Day race at Darlington this weekend, er … um … not Darlington … I mean California … ya that’s it … no wait it’s not in California anymore, where is it now? Oh yes, Atlanta Motor Speedway!
Where’s the race this weekend?
I must admit, I miss the tradition of having the Labour Day weekend race at Darlington and I don’t even live south of the Mason-Dixon line either. I don’t know , it just seemed right having a blue collar sport, on a blue collar weekend, at a blue collar track and then the race was moved to California where it lost its blue collar feel and became a Hollywood-like affair with Hollywood types driving the pace car, mingling with the drivers and singing the National Anthem or screaming into the microphone “gentlemen start your engines”.
Now the race is back in the Southeast in Atlanta which is geographically close to Darlington anyway, but Atlanta is much more urban than small town Darlington and Atlanta is a major market compared to Darlington. Atlanta has teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB where as Darlington does not.
Yet the blue-collar audience is there just a few short hours away, but will they come to Atlanta like they did in Darlington? We’ll find out Sunday night.
One thing Atlanta has going for it is that the race will be run in the evening under the lights – a first time event at the speedway - and the fans going to the race will not subjected to the usual scorching hot mid-day temperatures that plagued both the Darlington and California races.
Since the race will be run mostly under the lights the track won’t heat up as much and be as slick as it would be in the sun so the cars will have better grip and run faster.
Atlanta has become famous for its side-by-side finishes so let’s hope that tradition continues on Sunday evening.
Expect good runs from Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, and Carl Edwards. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mark Martin running close to the leaders at the end of the race either, but I don’t expect him to gamble too much and risk crashing because it’s do or die time for him and one little slip could have potentially fatal effects for him in the standings.
In the “where did he come from category?” look for any one of the RCR teammates of Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton, or Kevin Harvick to be there at the end as there was a major shake-up of RCR personnel this week as Richard Childress starts his re-building process now instead of later because all four of his current drivers are currently out of the Chase with no real hope of making it either. Hard times for RCR indeed especially since they had all 3 of their cars (they were only a 3 car team in 2008) in the Chase last year.
Since space is limited here why don’t you head on over to www.4ever3blog.com and find out what I had to say about last week’s Nationwide race in Montreal. See you there.
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