NASCAR to bid season finale

UPDATE Darlington Raceway president Chris Browning got a call Tuesday that sent him scrambling: Was International Speedway Corp. contemplating a sale of the old country track to its rival? So Browning, who was displaced when North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham was sold last year, called down to the company's Daytona Beach, Fla., headquarters to find out. "They told me, 'Hey, nothing to it, buddy,' " Browning told The Associated Press. "That was good enough for me." Browning said the report he read on the Internet speculated that Bruton Smith of Speedway Motorsports Inc. wanted to buy Darlington and move its remaining race weekend to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, giving that facility a second race date. But Browning said that's not the case. "There's absolutely no truth to the rumors whatsoever," he said. "I don't know where they got started." AP Story 04/04/05 NASCAR executives are working on the 2006 Nextel Cup tour schedule, and one suggestion from teams in the garage is for NASCAR to move the season finale to different tracks, as the Super Bowl is moved, with that date up for bids to the track owner willing to post the largest purse. But there are indications that the International Speedway Corp.[ISC] may be willing to sell Darlington Raceway and its lone remaining Cup tour date to track owner Bruton Smith, to move that tour date to Las Vegas, for a Cup event during the last 10 weeks of the 2006 season. And Smith would be willing to bid on being the host for the season finale at Las Vegas Speedway. Winston Salem Journal