Is the Race of Champions blowing off NASCAR?

Posted by Doug Demmons -- The Birmingham News April 17, 2009 8:14 AM

The annual Race of Champions pits the best drivers from across all of motorsports around the world and puts them in identical cars to see who is the best driver in the world.

It's sort of a world version of IROC except it uses a knockout format. Last year Carl Edwards was the lone NASCAR representative and in his first-ever ROC competition he pulled off a stunning upset by beating seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher in the second round.

That was last year in December at Wembley Stadium. This year the 22-year-old event is being moved to the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing made famous during the Olympics. The date for the race is also moving to Nov. 3-4.

That puts the race on a Tueday and Wednesday right after the end of the F1 season. That makes it quite convenient for F1. But what about NASCAR?

Well, that's just a few days after Talladega and a few days before Charlotte smack in the middle of the Chase.

Is Edwards or Kyle Busch or Jimmie Johnson or any other top NASCAR driver going to drop everything in the middle of the Chase to fly to China to participate in this and then fly right back?

It's possible. But don't count on it.

Apparently when a date was decided upon either nobody realized it was inconvenient for the NASCAR season -- or they just didn't care

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jaci on April 18, 2009 at 10:00am
Permalink Reply by Bruno on April 22, 2009 at 6:53am
I remember this one. Great show!
Robby was the first NASCAR driver to race in it. He fliped a Seat WRC in one race, and in another he jumped the dirt barrier and landed on the other drivers track. That was a waaayyyy better course than this stadium races they do now. And Robby gave everybody the his usual show.
Permalink Reply by Jaci on April 22, 2009 at 1:02pm
Here is the wreck:

Permalink Reply by Jaci on April 18, 2009 at 10:16am
I just thought it was interesting due to the fact that someone from NASCAR has been participating in it lately, including Carl, Jimmie, Jeff & Robby. I don't think they necessarily need to make sure that the schedule fits everyone's needs, the last Formula 1 race in Nov 1st. It was just announced this week, the real story is they found something they can use that huge Olympic stadium in China for.
Permalink Reply by GrayAntiMatter on April 19, 2009 at 4:08am
There is rarely more than one NASCAR driver in the event. Team USA is the only team that ever has a NASCAR driver, so they just go somewhere else now....

Travis Pastrana will probably still be the Rally driver for the team....
Permalink Reply by Jaci on April 19, 2009 at 7:56am
They have brought back the Trans-Am series, I wish someone would bring start another IROC series. Maybe they should get Bruton to do it.
Permalink Reply by ChevyTT77 on April 19, 2009 at 11:38am
I imagine once the economy rebounds, then IROC will be back. Lots of $$...
Permalink Reply by GrayAntiMatter on April 22, 2009 at 4:22am
IROC was fantastic when it started.

The last ten years it was nothing but extra track time in generic stock cars for random stock car drivers at some boring ovals.

If you think Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth need more track time on race weekend in a boring series with no action, then yeah...bring back IROC. A series that, at the end, was not International, had little racing and even fewer champions.

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