First off, NASCAR fans, at least the rabid fans, will probably sit this one out. Especially if the weather is good and there is anything else to do. Why? For most of the faithful, the site of two-ton stock cars negotiating a road course is not a thing of beauty. Secondly, most of the big names won’t be in the field. There will be no Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson. Junior Nation will have no one to root for. In fact, the only names of note that will be there from the usual Sunday crowd are Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards. Juan Pablo Montoya and Robby Gordon will be no-shows as will be some of the better racers from the Sprint Cup Series. What this race may boil down to is a battle between Boris Said, Sam Hornish, and Marcos Ambrose. It’s not exactly the stuff die-hard NASCAR fans salivate over.

Road racing has always been part of the NASCAR landscape. In my youth I used to look forward to Riverside, California’s opening race for the, what was then, Grand National Series season opener. Even in those days, the big stars stayed away. The Wood Brothers usually put A.J. Foyt or Dan Gurney in their car. Richard Petty was always there, but flogging a nearly two-ton race car around a road course was not a thing of beauty. We continue to do this, but for what reason?

You have to understand the marketing approach when those “stars” of the Sprint Cup Series appear at Infineon and Watkins Glen twice a year, but this race, run in the name of “expanding our market base” seems to be an exercise in futility. Few will watch and even fewer will care. The economic truth of this whole exercise is that the Nationwide teams, the ones who are short on cash, just won’t make it. It’s a tough economy right now.