Hey guys I was just reading this article.. what do you think about this, do you even think it's an issue?

Here's hoping NASCAR fixes the 2007 schedule

Some suggestions to help avoid another early Fontana no-show

By Ryan Smithson, NASCAR.COM
March 3, 2006
01:07 PM EST (18:07 GMT)
FONTANA, Calif. -- The most uttered sentences last week in Fontana were:
•"Did you see thaaaaaaaaaaaaat girl?"
•"Man, traffic is great here."
•"We could have been in Rockingham this weekend."
Rockingham was great. No one disputes that.
But I wonder if some of that testament is because Rockingham was so close to Charlotte. It was literally a helicopter ride away for some of these guys. Crewmen were home two hours after the race ended.
They wouldn't even have missed Cold Case.
Instead, some of the drivers fly commercial for the privilege of going a lap down to Greg Biffle after a mere 16 laps. Crewmen wake up at 5 a.m. to fly back to Charlotte first thing Monday morning. Then they head straight to work.
It's demoralizing.
One of Rockingham's downfalls was that it never was granted a favorable date on the schedule. It always had a date in February or November. Except for one glorious 80-degree weekend at Rockingham in Nov. 2001, the weather was unpredictable.
Sure, going to Fontana and Las Vegas in the first three races is sure to wear down the most ardent of crew members.
But what is the option? Is there one?
NASCAR has learned its lesson about scheduling races in the Southeast before mid-March. Remember the snow that would hit Richmond every February? Larry Mac would have had a coronary explaining track temperature on that one.
NASCAR almost has to schedule two West Coast races before mid-March. There is only a few places guaranteed to have good weather that early in the year, and unless Homestead-Miami is granted a second date, NASCAR is resigned to having those races in warm-weather climates.
Still, it is a problem that needs to be addressed. There is absolutely no reason why Busch Series teams should start the year with six consecutive races, three of which require trips of 2,000 miles or more.
Everyone talks about the hardships of Nextel Cup, but the Busch teams are worn out.
Fontana should not have a race date this early in the season, and certainly not right before the Las Vegas weekend. NASCAR is trying to avoid track saturation, but they traded one problem for another.
It is clear that drastic changes are on tap for the 2007 schedule.
Las Vegas is already moving ahead with plans to add banking and re-do its entire infield, and it probably wouldn't commit to such a project unless it thought it had half a chance of securing a second race date. Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns Las Vegas, has the option of transferring dates from another SMI track.
With the 2007 schedule, NASCAR should seriously consider some steps to make lives easier on the teams and make it easier to avoid attendance debacles like the one at Fontana:
•Ban testing at non-Nextel Cup tracks.
Drivers hate it and crew chiefs are not convinced the testing helps anyway. Although, if NASCAR and Goodyear retain their tire-leasing policy, this practice may die out naturally, unless a rival tire company introduces a testing tire. Unlikely.
•Run Texas as the second race of the year.
Then use the off-weekend before Las Vegas. Move Fontana to June and move Sonoma to May. Maybe more people will come to Fontana in the summertime. Move Talladega to Labor Day weekend and move Fontana's second date to October.
•Cut testing from six tracks to four.
Test at Daytona, Charlotte, Indianapolis and a road course.
•Limit preseason Daytona testing at two days.
One day of qualifying runs and one full day of drafting. Three days is too many.
•Separate the Las Vegas/Fontana weekends.
This will be impossible to avoid, but having the Las Vegas weekend so close has to hurt the Fontana attendance. Which would you rather attend?
NASCAR has a golden opportunity to perfect its 2007 schedule in conjunction with the new television deal. The Fontana-as-the-second-race experiment was a noble try, but it clearly has not worked.
The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.