NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
  • Peg It on GarageMonkey
CUP: Chicagoland Confirms Chase Date
The 2011 Chase will begin on Sunday, Sept. 18...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted August 09, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Chicagoland Speedway will be the location for the opening race of the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
As first reported by SPEED.com last week, Chicagoland Speedway will host the opening race of the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup.

The 2011 Chase will open at the 1.5-mile track on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2011.

“When we were offered the opportunity to get this race and relocate our event on the schedule to the first (Chase) race, we jumped at it,” Chicagoland Speedway President Craig Rust said. “I can’t think of a better market than Chicago and the Chicagoland area to kick off NASCAR’s version of the playoffs and the Chase For The Sprint Cup.”

“This year, in particular, we saw an opportunity to work with a number of tracks and we saw an opportunity for Chicago,” said NASCAR Vice President of Racing Operations Steve O’Donnell. “... We think we can make a big splash.”

The Chase date means the Chicagoland race will once again be run on a Sunday afternoon after several seasons as a Saturday night race.

Kansas Speedway will announce tomorrow morning that it is getting a second Sprint Cup date next season, while later on Tuesday, Kentucky Speedway will announce it is getting its first Sprint Cup race next July.

In order to facilitate Kansas getting an extra date, Auto Club Speedway will scale back from two races to one next year, while Kentucky gets its lone date at the expense of Atlanta, which will drop its annual spring date. Auto Club is expected to host its lone race in late March next year, with Daytona opening the schedule and Phoenix hosting the second race.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

Play! SPEED Fantasy Racing and Super 7 Sweep
tom_jensen's avatar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR
Advertising | Jobs | Feedback | FAQ | Terms of Use | NEW Privacy Policy | Ad Choices | Site Map
Fox Sports | FUEL TV | FX Network | National Geographic | IGN | AskMen
The Motor Sports Authority, SPEED and associated logos are registered trademarks of Speed Channel Inc.
All Rights Reserved © Speed Channel, Inc. 2013

All external links will open in a new browser window. SPEED.com does not endorse external sites.