Report: Atlanta to Lose Cup Race

According to sources, Atlanta Motor Speedway will only have one Sprint Cup race as of 2011 -- its Labor Day race that serves as the second-to-last race before the Chase. Word has it that Bruton Smith, who owns Atlanta as part of his Speedway Motorsports, Inc. company, plans to take one of Atlanta's dates and give it to the recently-purchased Kentucky Speedway.

Nothing is official, and NASCAR isn't expected to release the 2011 schedule until next month, but the report isn't entirely unexpected; Smith made it clear the moment he bought Kentucky that he wanted to bring a Cup race to the track, and Atlanta has suffered attendance woes for years -- even before the recession hit.

Rows upon rows of seats near the start-finish line have been empty for several years at Atlanta. It's one thing for a track to not sell seats in Turn 3 or Turn 4, but on the frontstretch, near the start-finish line?

That looks good for no one.

Expect some NASCAR traditionalists to criticize the move and decry the sport further distancing itself from its southern roots, but the truth is more complicated. Much like the decision to leave Rockingham and take away Darlington's fall date, the move to take a race away from Atlanta amounts to ticket sales. Atlanta has struggled to sell seats for years -- like Rockingham and Darlington before it -- and the move was needed.

Attendance is down almost everywhere, that's true. But Atlanta's troubles pre-date the recession, much like Fontana's. Expect an announcement soon that Auto Club Speedway will lose one of its dates, likely going to Kansas Speedway -- a track that does not have horrible attendance problems.

Atlanta is a great track, one that has a lot of history in NASCAR. It's also considered the sport's fastest, and the racing is often pretty solid. But the ample number of empty seats proved to be the track's undoing, and in Kentucky, the Cup Series is getting a track that enjoys a good amount of support; fans have welcomed the Camping World Truck Series, the Nationwide Series and the IndyCar Series to Kentucky with open arms.

So why wouldn't they do the same for a Cup race?

Darlington had rebounded nicely since being reduced to only having one race a season. Ticket sales have been up, the Southern 500 returned and that stop on the schedule has become a crown jewel again. Other tracks have thrived on the Cup Series schedule with just one date, so there's no reason Atlanta can't do the same -- especially since it will likely keep its Labor Day slot.

But the fact remains: had Atlanta's attendance been better the past decade, it wouldn't be losing a race.

Sadler's Wreck Highlights Problems

NASCAR had made tremendous strides in safety since 2001, when Dale Earnhardt died in a last-lap crash in the Daytona 500. Tracks have upgraded safety features such as energy-absorbing walls, while drivers find themselves in safer cars with safer custom-built seats and head-and-neck restraints that have undoubtedly averted the tragic consequences of many a horrific crash.

Say what you want about the current generation car in the Sprint Cup Series, it's incredibly safe. In fact, it might be the only reason Elliott Sadler is still with us after the hit he took Sunday at Pocono Raceway.

ESPN didn't get a really good look at the wreck, but here's video of what the network did catch:

That Sadler walked away from the wreck, even though the engine came clear out of the car, is a testament to the safety of the car and the HANS device. The crush panels in front of the car absorbed much of the energy that would've gone to Sadler otherwise, and the six-point harness and HANS device kept Sadler largely in place even as his car bounced off the guardrail and spun back onto the track.

However, the lack of safety upgrades at Pocono was made glaringly evident for the second straight race. Kasey Kahne nearly spun over the fence along the Long Pond straightaway in the June race, resulting in a call for Pocono to install catchfencing along the outside wall -- even though there are no grandstands back there.

After Sadler's wreck, there's calling for SAFER barriers to be installed along the inside of that straightaway and for the grass to be paved over. I agree that these changes need to be made, and NASCAR must make sure they happen.

The track has already promised these changes would be made in time for next season's races, but if I'm NASCAR, I take it a step further than that. If I'm Brian France, I tell track officials that if these changes are not made, the Sprint Cup Series (and the Camping World Truck Series, which made its debut at the track on Saturday) will not be back.

Simple as that. Make the necessary safety changes, or the show stops. NASCAR cannot allow its greatest asset -- its drivers -- be put needlessly in harm's way like that. Why have all these safety innovations and not use them?

Pocono has also talked of bringing the IndyCar Series back to the track. Can you imagine an IndyCar having the same impact Sadler did on Sunday? In that instance, we're not talking about a guy who walked away. We're talking about a guy being sent to the morgue.

Motorsports are dangerous; the only way to 100 percent guarantee safety is to not run these races at all. But NASCAR has done a great job of making things safer since Earnhardt's death. Tracks have also improved safety; after Jeff Gordon hit the inside wall hard at Las Vegas in 2008, the track changed the wall configuration.

Pocono needs to do the same. Add the catchfence, add the SAFER barriers. If the track cannot do this, then it doesn't deserve to host NASCAR races.

At all.

NASCAR Punished Edwards ... and Keselowski?

NASCAR announced on Wednesday that it would punish Carl Edwards for his last-lap incident with Brad Keselowski during Saturday night's Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway ... and no, it's not three weeks of probation.

Edwards will be on probation again -- this time until Dec. 31 -- but NASCAR also docked him 60 driver points, fined him $25,000 and docked car owner Jack Roush 60 points in the owners' championship.

Keselowski was also placed on probation until Dec. 31.

Despite the sanctioning body's "Boys have at it" philosophy heading into the season -- which resulted in Edwards receiving just three weeks' probation after the incident at Atlanta -- NASCAR had to react in this instance. NASCAR had to draw a line, because Edwards' actions clearly went farther than the intention behind NASCAR's loosening of the proverbial reigns.

This was the second time this season that Edwards intentionally dumped Keselowski at a high-speed area of the track, then boasted about it afterward. Both times, Edwards placed others in potential danger; at Atlanta, fans were at risk when Keselowski's car went airborne, and at Gateway, the wreck eventually collected several other drivers before its conclusion.

There was some call for Edwards to be parked a week -- much like Kevin Harvick was for a Cup race in Martinsville in 2002 -- but that would've left NASCAR in an uncomfortable position given the "Boys have at it" edict handed down in January. It was the same reason Edwards' punishment for the Atlanta wreck was so light; how could NASCAR tell the drivers to police themselves, only to step in and drop the hammer when a driver did just that?

But there's "Boys have at it," and there's what Edwards did.

The points penalty is appropriate, because it essentially returns the points to how they would've stood had the wreck not occurred. Keselowski led the most laps, giving him 10 bonus points, so if he had won the race, he would've banked 195 points. His 14th-place finish netted Keselowski 131 point -- a difference of 64 points.

So Edwards gets to keep the win, and the trophy, but he loses virtually all of the points he made up in the championship. While some of the hardier Keselowski fans and everyone else offended by Edwards' move might've liked a harsher penalty, I find the deduction of points appropriate and fair.

But what of Keselowski? Aside from the rubbing in Turn 1, he's done nothing wrong in this instance -- even the Atlanta incident that led Edwards to intentionally wreck him the first time was really Edwards' fault. NASCAR's official stance is that it placed Keselowski on probation because he has a history with Edwards, but I think it's something else entirely.

Putting Keselowski on probation was more of a preventative measure than a punitive one. Probation, nebulous as it is, spans across all three of NASCAR's national touring series -- Camping World Trucks, Nationwide and Sprint Cup -- and any action in one series can affect a driver's standing in another. When Harvick was parked for the Martinsville Cup race in 2002, it was for a wreck he deliberately caused in a truck race.

Keselowski, 26th in Cup points, has nothing to lose on that side, while Edwards is fighting for a spot in the Chase. But Keselowski is the Nationwide Series points leader, so if Keselowski paid back Edwards in a Cup race, NASCAR could theoretically penalize him in the Nationwide Series. To me, putting Keselowski on probation is NASCAR's way of trying to prevent Keselowski from seeking payback.

Of course, there's nothing saying Keselowski can't dish out payback next season. Immediate payback is extremely rare in NASCAR.

NASCAR also sent a message to other drivers, many of whom have wondered just how far "Boys have at it" goes. Now those drivers know; NASCAR will embrace rubbing, bump-and-runs and spinouts in the turns. The sanctioning body probably even relishes in the post-race war of words that drivers sometimes get into (looking at you, Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick).

But what this sport can't have is one driver intentionally wrecking another and putting others in danger in the process. Today's cars and tracks are safer than ever before, but there is no such thing as a guarantee when it comes to safety in racing. If a driver gets payback so aggressively, and his victim dies -- or kills someone else in the process -- what's NASCAR to do?

We can debate the severity of the penalty, but NASCAR had to issue one. There was no way around this.