Daytona 500 to be Held a Week Later in 2012

As race fans settle in to watch the 2011 Daytona 500, fans will have to wait an extra week for the 2012 race.

NASCAR and track officials announced Sunday that the Great American Race will be a week later in 2012, allowing the sport to shorten its season and avoid any potential conflicts with the NFL's Super Bowl.

NASCAR's 2012 season opener will be Sunday, Feb. 26.

The new date allows NASCAR to eliminate a traditional off week following the first three races of the season. It also gets NASCAR ahead of any potential changes to the NFL schedule, including an 18-game schedule or NFL labor strife that might force the Super Bowl in Indianapolis to be delayed a week.

"We're not going to deny the fact that part of this also is in dealing with the NFL," said Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR's vice president of racing operations. "Who knows where they'll go with an 18-game schedule. But we want to get ahead of that.

"Either way, we think it's the right thing to do for our season to kick off. The Super Bowl's certainly a big event, but so's the Daytona 500. To give fans an opportunity to go to both of those we think is the right move, it's a win-win for everybody."

Maybe NASCAR knows something we don't know about the NFL and possible schedule changes. 

NASCAR officials are anticipating changes to the NFL's schedule. Whether it's an 18-game schedule and/or an extra bye week thrown in, they certainly don't want Speedweeks trying to compete with America's biggest sporting event, the Super Bowl.

They even declined to say that the date for the next Daytona 500 — the fourth Sunday in February — would remain the same in future years.

NASCAR Drivers Can Compete for Only One Championship

This decision by NASCAR could hurt both Sprint Cup and Nationwide series.

Beginning with the 2011 season, drivers in the top two series' in NASCAR must choose one series, and one only, in which they can compete for a championship.

That knocks defending Nationwide Series champion Brad Keselowski and 2007 champion Carl Edwards — both of whom have announced plans to compete in all 35 Nationwide races in 2011 — out of the running for the title this year.  Both drivers have decied to compete for the Cup Championship.

Nationwide, the lower series title sponsor, would have preferred a sunset provision that would have enabled Keselowski and Edwards to compete for the title this year, but NASCAR drew the line.

“It was considered, and Nationwide had expressed that to us, as well as some of the drivers,” NASCAR president Mike Helton said Friday. “Particularly Carl and Brad had expressed it as, ‘OK, can you just give me one more year? We stuck to the decision, once we made it, that we felt like it was better for everybody concerned, the whole industry, to go ahead and draw the line and not have any lingering effects to it.”

Helton said NASCAR’s purpose was to force more exposure and attention on developing drivers who aren’t competing full time in the Cup series.

There’s a danger the move could have the opposite effect. Cup drivers will continue to grab the headlines by winning Nationwide races. Kyle Busch won 13 of the 35 races in 2010, followed by Keselowski with six and Edwards with four. All told, full-time Cup drivers won 33 races and now they can't claim a championship.

One driver confirmed his plan to concentrate on the Nationwide series on Monday. Kenny Wallace told NASCAR.com his license application from NASCAR read in part: "A driver will only be permitted to earn driver championship points in one (1) of the following three series: NASCAR Sprint Cup, NASCAR Nationwide or NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Please select the series in which you would like to accumulate driver championship points. Choose one."

Wallace, who has a full-time ride in the Nationwide Series, told NASCAR.com: "Of course I checked 'Nationwide.'"

NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp would not comment on the apparent change, telling NASCAR.com, "I'm sure we can answer all your questions at our competition update."

Does this cheapen the other series' in NASCAR?  Or will we have more competitive races going down the stretch?  We'll find out come November.

Hamlin Still With Work to do in NASCAR Finale

Denny Hamlin, who is ahead of reigning champion Jimmie Johnson by 15 points, is not concerned about being so far back in the 43-car field for the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Johnson qualified sixth for this race which will decide the 2010 championship.  Hamlin hada disappointing qualifying effort, he ended p in the 37th spot. 

He won this race in 2009 from one spot farther back.

The difference in having to catch the Lowe's #48 this year is that a Cup title is on the line. The reigning four-time champion, Johnson trails Hamlin by 15 points in the standings. Johnson will start Sunday's race 31 spots ahead of Hamlin and 22 positions in front of Kevin Harvick, the other championship contender.

Johnson, who's won the Homestead-Miami pole twice (2007, '09), clinched his second-best starting position (sixth) in the Chase races. He won the pole at Dover on Sept. 26, but in the eight other Chase events Johnson's average starting position was 17.5.

Four of Hamlin's eight victories this year were from a starting position of 14th or worse. His two victories at Texas on April 18 and Nov. 7 came from the 29th and 30th spots, respectively.

Including Sunday, Hamlin and Harvick will have started in the top 10 in just nine of 36 races. That's 15 fewer top 10 starts than Johnson. Last weekend in Phoenix, a notoriously difficult passing track, Hamlin started 17th and finished 12th.

"With the multi-groove track like Homestead … most guys prefer to run up high," Hamlin said. "I always seem to run lower here so I get a whole lot cleaner air than what guys do. Passing has not been as big of an issue at this track in the past as Phoenix has been for me. If I have half of the car that I had at Phoenix here this weekend, we should be OK."

We should see a close race Sunday afternoon, and the title could be decided a matter of inches.