Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: ‘Happy Hour’ going the way of dinosaur

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at [email protected] or (702) 259-4089.

NASCAR is eliminating the traditional "Happy Hour" final practice on Saturday at many of its Nextel Cup Series races in 2005, the sanctioning body announced Monday.

At more than half of its 36 points races, the weekend will feature two hours of practice on Friday and qualifying on Saturday. Immediately following qualifying and post-qualifying inspection, the cars will be impounded and teams will not be allowed to work on them.

The new format will not, however, will not be in place for the NASCAR weekend next March at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, LVMS general manager Chris Powell said.

"We're going forward with three days," Powell said of the March 11-13 weekend. "We'll have (NASCAR Busch Series and Nextel Cup Series) qualifying on Friday, the Busch race and Cup Happy Hour on Saturday and the Cup race on Sunday."

LVMS will join tracks such as Texas Motor Speedway, Lowe's Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C., and Talladega Superspeedway as venues that will keep the current format because they typically draw good crowds -- and make significant money -- for Friday qualifying. This year, LVMS attracted a crowd estimated at 65,000 for the Cup and Busch qualifying sessions.

"Our issues are different than other facilities' issues because we have people coming from all 50 states to watch three days of racing," Powell said. "We're selling three days of racing ... which is good for the city and the hotel industry and it's good for the fans because they get to see more racing."

NASCAR Nextel Cup Series director John Darby said the new race-weekend format is intended to reduce costs for race teams.

"Ultimately, all the teams will arrive at the track with a focus on one goal," Darby said. "That goal will be to have the best possible race setup, and hopefully that will enhance the overall competitive element throughout the field.

"We are still in the process of getting more tracks to commit to this procedure."

CHASE FACTS: The top five drivers in the "Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup" -- Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin -- are separated by only 82 points with one race remaining. If Johnson wins Sunday's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway and leads the most laps, Busch must finish second and lead at least one lap to win the championship. ...

Johnson has won four of the nine "Chase" races and has vaulted from ninth in points to second in the past five races. ...

Only twice in NASCAR history has the points leader been overtaken in the final race of the season: Richard Petty passed Darrell Waltrip in 1979 and Alan Kulwicki overtook Davey Allison in 1992. ...

The biggest deficit that a driver has overcome to win a Cup championship with one race remaining was 30 points by Kulwicki in 1992. Kulwicki trailed Allison going into the season finale and won by 10 points over Bill Elliott in the closest points race in NASCAR history.

GOING FOR TWO: Nextel Cup rookie Kasey Kahne will make another start in the No. 2 Ultra Motorsports Dodge in Friday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Kahne won Saturday's truck race at Darlington Raceway in his first-ever start in the Truck Series.

LVMS TEST: The traditional NASCAR winter test at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will be held Jan. 31-Feb. 2 and will be open to the public, free of charge.

Cup teams also will be testing at California Speedway in Fontana Feb. 1-3. Teams will be able to test a maximum of two days at each track and the combined tests will count as only one test date.

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