This weekend's NASCAR Cup race is at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. The Toyota/Save Mart 350 is one of just two road course races on the schedule.
The entry list for the race has 44 names. Only one car is going home after qualifying Friday.
There's not much NASCAR news until the teams get to the track Thursday.
There's a small adjustment to the 2012 schedule. The spring race at Dover will move back to early June right after Memorial Day. Attendance sagged when they moved the race to May, so they're moving it back.
Michigan International Speedway and ESPN have combined forces to put a race title sponsorship and media sponsorship package together for Michigan's tourism bureau. This story is really only interesting in that it answers the question of how much money is thrown around to put one of these NASCAR races together.
But the money is nothing compared to what it takes to put on an F1 race. The Austin city council is voting Thursday, basically signing on the dotted line to officially put on the American Grand Prix.
It seems that a yes vote by the seven-member council would finally allow race promoters to take advantage of the money in the Texas Major Events Trust Fund. The promoters would pay $4 million a year for ten years and get back $25 million a year for ten years to give to Bernie Ecclestone and F1 management for the privilege of holding the race.
A host of other problems are rearing their ugly heads, including the fact that Austin, Texas, a town with virtually no extra hotel rooms, has never held an event of this size before. The latest wrinkle in the saga is that two educators and an accountant have filed a lawsuit to block payment of the subsidy to the race promoters.
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