Catchfence

After covering two consecutive NASCAR Nationwide Series standalone races – and I’m headed to a third this weekend – I continue to wonder why there aren’t more.

Sure, attendance was terrible at Nashville Superspeedway two races ago, but that has been a problem for some time now at that track. The crowd at Kentucky Speedway was down, too, but that’s the first race this year where I was surprised attendance was off.

And it wasn’t because there were only three full-time Sprint Cup drivers in the field, as some might think. No, if attendance is down at Kentucky, there’s only one reason why: the poor economy.

Still, Kentucky had a good crowd, and you can bet there will be another good one at Milwaukee this Saturday.

Which, again, begs the question: Why aren’t there more standalone races on the Nationwide Series?

There are nine such races on the 2009 schedule: two at Nashville, Kentucky, Milwaukee, Gateway, Iowa, Indy, Montreal and Memphis. And that’s it.

That means the Nationwide Series shares the billing with the Cup series at 26 races, giving teams 26 excuses to field Cup drivers instead of Nationwide regulars.

OK, I know the reason why so many teams field Cup drivers. The main reason is it’s easier to find sponsorship for a Cup driver. And that’s valid.

But what if there were 26 standalones and nine combo races? Or even 18 standalones and 17 combos? Teams wouldn’t be able to sell sponsorship for Cup drivers, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

- SceneDaily.com