Nextel Cup All-Star Weekend

I know John over at Blogotional is getting all excited about the Indy 500 next weekend (he loves those whiney glorified go-karts that they run in the IRL, and he's got me going to a race with him at Fontana in October), but I'm kind of excited about this weekend's Nextel Cup All-Star Challenge. Unlike the IRL, NASCAR runs cars that don't fall apart whenever someone gets too close to them, so beating and banging is to be expected.

This is a non-points race, which means it's all about the money - $1 million to the winner - and the bragging rights. The drivers are basically told by their teams to either win the race or don't bring the car back. The format is also completely different from a regular points race. You can read about it at NASCAR.com.

Drivers qualify for the race a number of different ways (there will be 22 cars in the final):

1. Be a points race winner in the current or previous seasons
2. Be a past NASCAR champion
3. Be a past winner of the All-Star Challenge
4. Win the Nextel Open, which is a qualifying race for all cars not currently eligible for the All-Star Challenge. It's win or go home for 28 cars, so the racing is wild.
5. And if you don't make it in on #1-4, fans have been voting for awhile and the driver with the most fan votes who hasn't qualified gets in.

The race will be Saturday night on FX starting at around 4pm PDT. It'll be wild.

By the way, after the IRL guys run 500 miles at Indy next weekend, the NASCAR guys will run 600 miles at Charlotte. Tony Stewart, John Andretti and Robbie Gordon have run both races in the same day in the past, but because of schedule changes it won't be possible this year. Eleven hundred miles of racing in one day is a good TV day indeed.