Racing was born in a small town... (Part 1: Two-Race Tracks)

...and exactly where it stood, until 1996. The schedule in NASCAR is one that that is almost always the same each year, and as the conglomerates, Speedway Motorsports Incorporated and Internation Speedway Corporation jockey to get their tracks on the NASCAR Winston Cup Schedule (I don't care about the Sprint name, we know RJ Reynolds well), we lose sight of what NASCAR is about. NASCAR currently has 22 tracks on the Winston Cup schedule. Several of these tracks have had events over 100 times, and as the next track reaches the grand milestone (Bristol), it is announced by a leaked report that Kentucky Speedway, a 1.5 mile track on the Busch Series circuit in Sparta, Kentucky. As a result, and if I predict NASCAR correctly, one track will either a) be evicted or b) lose one of its two races, if it has two.

Currently on the NASCAR roster the following tracks have two races per season:

Talladega
Daytona
Bristol
Martinsville
Pocono (just 6 weeks apart)
New Hampshire
Dover
Atlanta
Texas
Phoenix
Charlotte (only track with 3, but the Winston is not a points event)
Richmond
Michigan

This list is very diverse and the three names that I keep seeing pop up, including by Mark Spoor and Bill Kimm on NASCAR.com are Atlanta, Fontana and Pocono. All three tracks are very diverse. If I had to say which was the best to keep two races for, the vote for me, despite living in Jersey, would be Atlanta. Atlanta sees more action and photo finishes than Fontana or Pocono. Fontana has never been a racetrack that interested me greatly, and as Bill Kimm put it on NASCAR.com, Pocono is the tricky triangle of no passing and boring minutes. On the list, we also have Michigan, which comes up in 2 weeks and is also the main sister track to Fontana. Now in fairness, I am not the biggest fan of Michigan either, but the speedway has more action than Fontana does.

Phoenix, Dover, Richmond, Bristol, and Martinsville, five of the remaining short tracks on the schedule, are some of the best tracks up there. Until 2005's World 600, Bristol held the record for most cautions in a Sprint Cup race, with 20, and is also the highest-banked track in NASCAR, with 36 degrees of banking. Bristol is my favorite racetrack by far, and I always go to significant effort to watch all Bristol races. The races at Bristol are very popular, seeing until this year, they have had sell out crowds for over 25 years. The next track is Martinsville. Martinsville Speedway has seen NASCAR racing since actual significant races in 1949. The track is by far the shortest, at 0.528 of a mile long. (Bristol isn't far off at 0.536) Martinsville is a great racetrack, and one of the few that shows NASCAR's roots. For a long time, people have wondered, after Darlington lost the Southern 500, would Martinsville be next to lose a race? This so far has not been the case, and if it does, I will definitely oppose it. Dover is a longer Bristol of sorts, with high banking and massive wrecks when they do occur. Racing at Dover is as fun as looking at the Concrete Monsters around the track and on the trophy. Phoenix and Richmond are definitely different. Both are short tracks, but Richmond runs like a mile-half track at times, with low banking and high speeds. Phoenix is more like a superspeedway short track, with low to no banking, high-speeds and good action. If I had to choose from one of the five up there to can, my vote would be a tough one, but I would lean towards Phoenix.

The next two tracks up there require no introduction, Daytona and Talladega. Daytona is like the centerpiece of NASCAR, with the Daytona 500 and the Firecracker 400 yearly. We start the season in Daytona (although for a long time that was not the case) and the Firecracker 400 used to be the only race that started at 10 AM on a regular basis, because they didn't want to have to deal with the heat and bugs. If you win the Daytona 500, you are one of the best in NASCAR, and since 1959, people have had their name engraved into the Harvey Earl Trophy. Talladega Superspeedway is the Winston Cup's longest track (but not entirely in NASCAR), at 2.66 miles long. Talladega is the only track that does not have its start/finish line in a front straightaway or tri-oval. Talladega's start-finish line is near Turn 1, after the tri-oval. The track has generated more excitement than most races (maybe except for Bristol) on the schedule. Talladega and Daytona both produced the term "The Big One", when cars come piling into one another while bump-drafting. Sometimes these wrecks take out 15, 20, 25 and rarely, 30 cars. The last caution-free race in NASCAR was held at Talladega in 2002, eight years ago in the fall. These two tracks are the centerpiece of NASCAR and deserve the two races they already have. My opinion on whether or not Talladega's fall race should be moved will be covered in another post.

I know I've taken a serious amount of time to read this, but for what its worth, this is an introduction to my next series. From now until September 7, each of the 22 active tracks will be blogged, criticized, reminisced and explained. As a bonus I will bring up about some from the dead-side. I will be leaving my opinions in all this, but I'd like you the reader to formulate your own and understand that NASCAR has its roots, and we'll have to find them once again. If you noticed, I bolded until 1996 in the lead. On September 29, 2010, you'll get an answer to why this is so. On September 29, 2010, I will write the final chapter in this series about the one track who deserves a 2nd chance. For the first track of the series, I am going to cover one of the greatest tracks on the circuit, Talladega Superspeedway.

Until then,
Roadgeek Adam
Transportation Historian