Full Throttle

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that the Texas Motor Speedway will receive a second NASCAR race in 2005.

As reported in Wednesday’s Star-Telegram, sources have confirmed TMS will not only get its long-sought second Cup date, but that date also will be gift-wrapped as part of the 10-race “Chase for the Championship.”

This is the ultimate win/win for O. Bruton Smith, SMI chairman and chief executive officer, and of course Ferko, the Plano resident and SMI shareholder who filed his lawsuit in February 2002.

Sources told the Star-Telegram TMS’ second date likely will be slotted into the first weekend of November 2005. That would be Nov. 6, and make it the seventh of 10 races counting toward The Chase for the driver’s championship.

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According to the Star-Telegram’s sources, Darlington will drop out of The Chase mix in 2005, and instead stage its lone Cup race on the Saturday before Mother’s Day. PIR’s traditional fall date will slide from the 34th slot into the 35th on Nov. 13, in place of Darlington.

Figure NASCAR again will kick off the 2005 Chase on Sept. 18 at the 1.058-mile New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon, N.H. — viewed by the sanctioning body as its gateway into the coveted Boston market.

There has been a lot of speculation on NASCAR’S ‘05 schedule. You gotta figure that with a bevy of legal shysters involved this scenario may be close to reality.