Posted on Wed, Sep. 26, 2007

For a good while, racing after dark in NASCAR was reserved for two dates per season - the August race at Bristol and the Coca-Cola 600 near Charlotte, which actually starts in the late afternoon and finishes after dark.

Now, however, more and more races are shifting from their traditional start times on early Sunday afternoon to Saturday evenings.

Racing at night reminds many drivers of when they got their start racing at local short tracks. Ironically, staging more races at night is hurting those very tracks.

Richmond holds both of its Nextel Cup Series races on Saturday night. The Pepsi 400 at Daytona, the spring race at Phoenix and Darlington's event are also Saturday night races in addition to the fall race near Charlotte.

Next year, Chicagoland Speedway will stage its Busch and Cup races at night.

There is no denying that holding a race during night hours is a TV executive's dream, with all the advertising dollars to be made during primetime hours. And the folks with the TV contracts hold a lot of power these days, regardless of how flat the race coverage is or how short postrace driver interviews are, like this past week's race at Dover.

But while FOX, ABC, TNT and ESPN, along with NASCAR, are profiting very well off of the bright lights of night racing, the local short track racing scene is slowly being left out in the cold darkness.

There was a day and time when local short tracks were a staple. In a time before driver development programs and open-wheel drivers joining NASCAR, about the only way to advance into racing was starting at local short tracks.

Growing up in Valdosta, one of my earliest memories of racing came locally when we would go to Thunderbowl Speedway, a 3/8-mile dirt oval. At the time, things were known to get a bit testy in the pits. I remember one night, after two drivers had a "racing incident" in both the heat race and later in the feature race, the track announcer had to call for security to separate the two drivers from one another in the pit area.

But the Thunderbowl is suffering a fate similar to some of the most famous circuits, like as Metrolina Speedway near Charlotte, where drivers like Dale Earnhardt got their start: The cars have been replaced by weeds and grandstands in disrepair with the tracks having closed down for various reasons. Middle Georgia Raceway near Byron is another statistic.

Luckily, there are still some local tracks nearby in Cordele, Swainsboro and Cochran, but even they have to scratch and claw to get by at times.

Some have resorted to tactics similar to minor league baseball. The best attended night at Lanier National Speedway in Braselton last year? It wasn't for a race. It was for James Best, Roscoe P. Coltrane from the "Dukes of Hazzard," signing autographs. And that's one of the finest short tracks in the South. If that's not a sad statement about the state of local short track racing, I don't know what is.

Let's face it, this isn't 20 years ago when there was a lot less to do. And when tracks have to go up against the second-most popular sport in America on the only night that they are open for business during the season, it's tougher to get people to the track. And when that happens, it's tougher to pay the bills as a track owner.

Hey, I'm all for Cup races under the lights every now and then. But when those night races cause neglect of NASCAR's grassroots, it's a serious problem.