NASCAR Cup Series

Short-track chaos coming in NASCAR

Published Mar. 15, 2010 5:15 p.m. ET

Larry McReynolds

If you look at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series calendar, you will notice that there are only two races before the next break.

But boy, are they a pair of races.

Over the next two weeks, Cup teams leave the speedways behind and focus on short-track racing as we have the visit to Bristol Motor Speedway this week and then Martinsville Speedway right after that.

It’ll be interesting to see, as we go back to our roots in the coming two weeks, how emotions and feelings are shown. Now, of course, Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards’ Atlanta collision is fresh on everybody’s mind, but I don’t think we’ll see emotions flare more than normal the next two weeks. All eyes will be on Keselowski and Edwards, but I doubt we’ll see it escalate. There were several serious meetings since Atlanta between everybody and I think everybody got the hint to knock it off.

As we’ve seen in the past, however, there will be plenty of fireworks even without the Nos. 12 of Keselowski and 99 of Edwards battling each other at Bristol and Martinsville.

These next two races will be very interesting because one, Bristol, will be run using the car as we have come to know it. But once we get to Martinsville, teams are expected to go back to using a rear spoiler instead of a wing.

But if the change does take place, as expected, it would seem like it couldn't be a more perfect schedule. We are going to go to Martinsville with the new spoiler. It is the shortest track we go to and the place where aerodynamics are the least critical of anywhere that we go. Then we will have an off week to think about and analyze the car change before heading over to a 1-mile track (Phoenix) where aero is a little more important and then we are off to Texas, a 1.5-mile track where aero is very important, and then Talladega, the biggest track we go to where aero is everything. Combine that with the tests NASCAR has set at Talladega and Charlotte Motor Speedway and it’s unique how the schedule is set up.

It’s going to be a fun stretch, make sure to join us for the ride.