August 22, 2008
By Guest Columnist Cathy Elliott
On August 19, NASCAR announced plans to rearrange its furniture for next year.
I am a wholehearted proponent of this practice. I do it all the time in my own home. It takes some thought, and some cooperation when tackling the task of shifting the heavier pieces around the room. Your kids, spouse or significant other may complain when they come in late and fling themselves down on the sofa in the dark, only to come crashing to the floor when they find that it has been relocated while their attention was focused elsewhere. Some minor bruising may occur, but it will heal eventually.
We all yearn for something fresh, but sometimes we have to learn to make do with what we already have, to use it more efficiently and more creatively. All that stuff was cool when we first acquired it; that's why we committed to it in the first place. It hasn't really lost any of its original appeal. We just need to consider it from a different perspective.
That old recliner breeding a new generation of dust bunnies in the corner, for example, might brighten up the entire room when moved a bit closer to the fireplace. And that tired-looking sofa could find a nice lease on life with nothing more than some snazzier upholstery and a sunny spot beside the window.
When you change the way your furniture is placed, it all seems different and new. You notice different things. Your eye goes to items you have taken for granted and they are once again appreciated.
Your guests notice the change, too, and it keeps them interested and wanting to come back and visit more often, just to see what you've done with the place.
For decades, you couldn't swing the proverbial dead cat in the Southeast without hitting a race track hosting an annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Series weekend or two. But some other parts of the country – the West, mostly – were considered under-served.
So, in 2003, NASCAR rolled up the rugs along with their sleeves and went to work rearranging the furniture in an effort to transform the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule from a cozy love seat into more of a conversational grouping.
This time, the ancient Chinese principles of feng shui came into play.
Feng shui is the practice of arranging objects, such as furniture, to help people achieve balance. NASCAR realigned some Cup dates in an attempt to balance out the schedule.
The most significant of these changes, which went into effect beginning with the 2004 season, were the implementation of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship format, the end of the Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend at Darlington Raceway, and the addition of a second race weekend at California Speedway. In the ultimate example of going bi-coastal, Labor Day weekend racing moved from South Carolina to Southern California.
The inaugural Southern 500, which was run on Labor Day in 1950, was the first race of its kind. It was the first stock race ever run on a paved asphalt track, and the first to last 500 miles. The very name carried a certain cachet in racing circles, evoking buzzwords like history and tradition and stirring up the ghosts of racers past. For many fans, even those who understood that sometimes the sofa needs to be moved to the opposite wall, the loss was hard. The Southern 500 name had become synonymous with Labor Day weekend racing. When the race left Darlington, the name left with it.
NASCAR moved a few additional items around in the intervening years – adding a second race weekend at Phoenix, for example – but for the most part, the schedule has looked much the same for the past five seasons.
This year, however, NASCAR cast its appraising eye over the room and decided it might benefit from a moderate makeover. For starters, in 2009, the Southern 500 and Labor Day weekend racing will return to the Southeast. They just won't be traveling in tandem.
The ball got an early nudge on Aug. 13, when Darlington Raceway announced the return of the Southern 500 to the track "Too Tough To Tame." Racing at Darlington in 2009 will take place on Mother's Day weekend, as it has since 2005.
After five seasons of hosting a holiday weekend, California Speedway relinquished Labor Day to Atlanta Motor Speedway. Some of the reasons offered were extreme heat and the vast selection of entertainment options available in Southern California. Although Atlanta is pretty busy, too, and the temperatures are not appreciably lower, most fans will probably agree that night racing in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend will be one very cool experience.
Atlanta gave Talladega Superspeedway its late spot in the 10-race Chase. Just when we all thought Talladega couldn't get any more hair-raising, the 2009 event will fall on Halloween weekend. Talladega in turn handed its Chase date, formerly in the earlier half of the championship run, to California.
All the furniture is the same, but suddenly, the room looks a whole lot different.
An old Chinese proverb tells us that, "A gem cannot be polished without rubbing." Neither can a long and complicated race schedule that covers countless miles and affects legions of fans each year. So if some flaw is eventually revealed in this particular gem, or the traffic pattern of the room doesn't flow as well as it should, don't worry. It can be rearranged.
For now, though, things seem to be balanced nicely for the purpose of entertaining a few million of NASCAR's closest friends.
I predict that next year, we'll love what they've done with the place.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
