Monday, August 9, 2010

Is Las Vegas Hopes of Getting Second Cup Date Really Dead?

By Micah Roberts

With all the news slowly trickling in regarding the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule, the one date left out of the entire mix was where New Hampshire’s fall date would be. Chicago Speedway announced that they would be getting the first race of the Chase, a race that has traditionally been New Hampshire’s throughout the Chase.

Chicago will likely be replacing the California date with Kansas also expected to take over the lost date for California giving them their second race. That takes care of the International Speedway Corporation side of things, but not all the pieces to the Speedway Motorsports Incorporated puzzle are there yet.

Kentucky will officially announce Tuesday that they will be getting their first Cup date at the expense of Atlanta, but what about New Hampshire? Where is their fall date going since the date has been changed.

With all the release of information throughout NASCAR and both sides of the SMI and ISC camps before NASCAR’s official scheduled announcement of their 2011 schedule, could there be more in store? Why even schedule a press conference if everything has been unveiled already in almost a calculated predetermined leak of information.

The initial rumor months ago had Las Vegas getting New Hampshire’s fall date and though many writers have called it a dead issue, I don’t believe that to be the case. I think there is still something under NASCAR’s sleeve to give their press conference a bang, such as announcing the season finale will be in Las Vegas. Until I hear officially that New Hampshire has a date in the Chase, I still have hopes for Las Vegas.

The belief rests simply with NASCAR fiddling with their Chase format for 2011 and while the exact format change may not be announced on August 19 with the schedule announcement, a season finale of grandeur as NASCAR has talked about wouldn’t have the same sizzle in Homestead as it would under the lights bright lights of Las Vegas.

It may be wishful thinking just because Vegas is my home, but all the pieces aren’t in place yet to write Vegas off just yet.  

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