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Truck & Nationwide doubleheader @ Atlanta. If they include both races with admission and don't jack up the prices too ridiculously, it could be a new trend for both series.

Anyone catch...

Additionally, Daytona's always-anticipated July race weekend takes on a different look as the Sunday, July 5 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race marks the return of broadcast partner NBC.

and the Nationwide race is Sat the 4th, possibly also a day time race now.

NHRA and NASCAR swapped the June and July dates... Nascar gets the rainy mess and NHRA gets the scorching July heat.

I cant believe Indy Bristol and Talladega are not on NBC

Definitely, but will the fans forgive the bastards for taking it away to begin with and no infield space for fans so as to make way for the driver/owner/media luxury coach parking, same as at the ROCK. Darlington has the best chance to survive due to history and the track layout still intact, if ass backwards. Infield at Darlington Prime was zombie movie reality when you'd drive into it on race day mornings. Zombie walkers holding Budweiser cans in the steamy fog from the humid sunrise. Talladega does a good job of upholding this tradition only because it's so big there is still room for fans to gather and camp over in turns 1 & 2, too far from the garage for millionaire motorhomes.
No surprise if ATL will be gone within two years with the shitty new race date and Brutus, same as the ROCK. Atlanta was modded into just another clone of CMS, LVMS, CAL... ad nauseam. Was a great track design with two half mile turns and two quarter mile straightaways. You could stand on pit road and see turns 1 & 2 and the backstretch and most of turns 3 and 4 back then.

"The trucks draw the best on the short tracks, so lets give them a race at Atlanta!" - NASCAR

The Cup schedule is stagnant, and the Nationwide/Truck schedules need some work to give them their own identity. For all of Formula 1's faults, and even though they do it solely based on money, they've at least put together schedules that aren't stagnant, to take away some of the advantage from the dominant teams.

I'm pretty sure I read the Coke Zero 400 is going to be Sunday NIGHT??? Why does that make any sense at all.

HAHAHAHA I thought they wised up and moved it back to the afternoon, but not only that, but that Labor Day Southern 500? Oh that's sunday night too! No traditional return to the late morning start time.

Some of you may not remember when a "traditional" race in Darlington could not be held on a Sunday (SC state law). No beer could be sold (legally) on Sundays either (blue law). The Rebel 400 was held on Saturday afternoons in the spring and the Southern 500 was on Labor Day Mondays. Made for an insufferably hot, humid and long Saturday night, all day Sunday and Sunday night stretch for fans in the infield. By 10am the temp usually was in the low 90's and climbing along with the humidity there in the infield, pits and garage with no breeze able to get in over the banking. Darlington got a good bit of humidity (from the coast I always figured). Atlanta was always cooler no matter what time of year or day by just a smidge less humidity alone.

To celebrate the return of the Southern 500 to Labor Day, Terry's last win in the last race in 2003.

^^^ That was an incredible day. One of my favourite wins of all time.

So much has changed in NASCAR since that race.

Yep - I also think of everything 2003 on-backwards and miss those days tremendously. It's odd, but a bunch of other things in my life changed in 2004, so anything after that just felt... I dunno. Different.

2003 was a great season. I don't care that Kenseth ran away with the title. There were so many good races. That is something NASCAR doesn't understand. To get viewers on TV and butts in the seats, it's not about the championship battle, it's about having great races each week.

That's the reason I still watch now, actually. I tune in every single week because there's nothing more entertaining than driver tempers, smart pit strategy and great battles at the end of a race. The full season championship\Chase results have always been secondary, which seems strange, but that's the way I've always looked at it.

Especially now that the championship is a lottery.

ISC is just as much to blame as SMI for Rockingham being gone. They are the ones that sold it to him knowing that he would transfer the date to Texas. In that regard, I'd put more blame on ISC. As far as the clone part, CMS yes, but it can't be a clone of LVMS since LVMS's current configuration was created in 2007 and ACS is a D shaped, flatter 2 mile track. Nothing like it.

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Think about it.... The race would be Saturday July 4th. How many people are going to be watching fireworks, etc? I'll tell you, as much as I love the Coke Zero 400, I'd be with my family and friends cooking out and lighting up the night sky. Putting it Sunday July 5th actually makes a lot of sense. Who is really going to be out and about that night? Most people will be winding down from the holiday weekend and what better to do than flip on a race at Daytona??.... Though moving to a 10/11am start time on every July 4th is what I wish.

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While I more or less agree with that, let's be honest, the decision to put it on Sunday was most likely due to a TV contract or something like that.

While they're going back to the Darlington on Labour Day weekend tradition, they might as well just as easily go back to running the 400 during the day of July 4th. They'd only have to do it for a year, and then they could go back to their primetime slot in 2016.

Not gonna happen, but it'd be fun.

Of course it was. NBC's first race back, can't blame them. Personally I say throw it on July 4th @ 11am or run it Monday night closest to July 4th. The 500 a few years back showed that Monday can draw ratings and maybe start a new tradition. Idk, I'm at work and speaking out of my ass now.

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Go Miami Dolphins!
Go New York Yankees!
Go New York Rangers!