Kentucky Speedway closer to 2011 Sprint Cup date

Lost in the storylines surrounding the Daytona 500, and a now infamous pothole, was the news that the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati denied a request by Kentucky Speedway’s former owners for a rehearing in their antitrust case against NASCAR and International Speedway Corp.
The track’s former owners, Jerry Carroll and Richard Duchossois have about three months to decide if they want to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to current Kentucky Speedway owner, Chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc., Bruton Smith, Carroll will not pursue any more legal action.

This was released via Sirius/XM’s NASCAR radio channel’s Twitter page last night: “Jerry Carroll has told me they will not file another lawsuit.”

This opens the door for Smith to make a decision on how to get the stars of NASCAR into Kentucky. In December he told ESPN.com’s Terry Blount, “It’s not going to be easy, but we have some time to figure it out. We probably have about six months or so to work it out.”

Joey Logano ducks his No. 20 Game Stop Toyota into turn three during practice for last year's Nationwide Series race at Kentucky Speedway. Logano won the race the next evening.

Smith has many options to get Kentucky a race, the most often batted around idea is moving a Cup date from another SMI owned track. SMI owns seven tracks that currently hold Cup races: Atlanta, Bristol, Infineon (Sears Point), Las Vegas, Charlotte, Texas and New Hampshire along with Kentucky. Those seven tracks hold 12 events—one-third of the NASCAR season.

For now, Smith will have some time to sit back and think through his decision. In the next three weeks NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series will put three SMI tracks in the spotlight. It could be at those three tracks that Smith—an openly, and occasionally brutally honest guy with the media—will answer the tough questions about his tracks.

The flyover before the Nationwide Series race in 2009. Packed grandstands have been the highlight of the second-tier series, will fans be treated to a Cup race in 2011.

Check back in a few months to see the final decision on Kentucky Speedway. I have a feeling that Smith might announce the plans during the track’s biggest weekend in June when the Nationwide Series visits. We’ll see if my prognostication is correct.