Texas Motor Speedway announced its 2007 NASCAR and Indy Racing League schedules this week. The basic outline of the track’s three main racing weekends will be the same, but there are some minor adjustments to the schedules, including the return of nighttime NEXTEL Cup racing under the lights.
The season will kick off April 12-15 with the Crown Royal International Race of Champions, Busch and NEXTEL Cup series making a stop at the Ft. Worth track. The race weekend has been moved back a week to avoid conflicts with the Easter weekend, an off weekend for NASCAR, and to prevent the Cup event going head-to-head with The Masters golf tournament.
The RadioShack 500, previously the Samsung/RadioShack 500, will be the marquee event of the weekend but will be preceded by the IROC race Friday evening, April 13, and the Busch Series O’Reilly 300.
The IROC series pits drivers from various racing disciplines in identical cars in an attempt to crown the best overall driver. The NASCAR Busch Series is a stock car league filled with up-and-coming drivers intermixed with veteran drivers.
The IRL will team up with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series June 8-9 for a pair of night races. The trucks will hit the track June 8 for the Sam’s Town 400, followed by the Bombardier Learjet 500k IRL race on June 9.
While the race dates are set, the track is still planning additional events for fans.
“We’re still working on a couple of items that will make this schedule even more enticing to the fans and we will be announcing those plans down the road,” said TMS President Eddie Gossage. “Expect to see some tweaks that make this event more fun for the fans.”
NASCAR’s three series will return to TMS Nov. 2-4 for a stock car triple-header.
The Craftsman Truck Series kickoff the weekend with the Silverado 350k on Nov. 2, followed by the O’Reilly Challenge Busch Series race Nov 3. The weekend ends with the NEXTEL Cup Dickies 500. The race is the eighth stop in the 10-race NASCAR playoffs known as the Chase for the NEXTEL Cup.
The 2007 race will have an early afternoon start to ensure that the race will end at night under the lights. The inaugural Dickies 500 finished under the lights in 2005, but scheduling issues with NBC prevented the same arrangement in 2006.
The 2007 Dickies 500 will have a new broadcaster, ABC, which will begin airing races with sister network ESPN, replacing NBC next year.
“This is a prime example of a sanctioning body [NASCAR], television partner [ABC] and a promoter working together to give the fans in the stands and the viewers at home what they wanted,” Gossage said. “The fans want a NASCAR race under the lights and I’m extremely pleased with all the parties involved that we were able to deliver. It is decisions like these that make the sport even stronger.”
