On NASCAR's economic battlefield, the next campaign is this week at Nashville: with a stand-alone Nationwide race

  

  
So who will be this week's Guitar Man? Carl Edwards? As here in 2007....(Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   PHOENIX
   Within the past week both Bruton Smith and the France family, NASCAR's two most powerful operators, as promoters of most of the top speedways in America, have run into some big economic bumps in the road, and they've both laid them out in detail in their quarterly stock analysis.
   Not surprising, considering the U.S. economy is chugging along so fitfully.
   But Smith had a great crowd at Texas Motor Speedway Sunday for the Texas 500, a crowd estimated by NASCAR at 176,000.
   And next week the France family's International Speedway Corp. arm steps back to the plate with the next Sprint Cup stop at Phoenix International Raceway.
   Phoenix is always a popular draw for fans, not necessarily because of the action (the turns are a little too tight and flat for action as good as at Richmond International Raceway, perhaps the best place on the tour these days for short-track action), but because, well, good question – why do so many campers haul so far down to Arizona? Perhaps to check out cool spots along the way, like Zion, Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon and Sedona.
   For whatever reason, PIR is typically jammed with campers all the way to the horizon.
   But that's next week. This week it's Nashville, and a Nationwide stand-alone race, which is usually problematic, with Cup stars the draw. Another Kyle Busch win seems in the cards….so maybe we'll see just how much star power NASCAR's best driver has when he's pretty much on his own, matched with Carl Edwards.
   Too, Nashville is one of the few NASCAR tracks that isn't owned by either Smith or the Frances. It's owned by Dover Downs (a publicly traded company, in which one man, Texan Henry B. Tippie, owns controlling interest).
   How well will Dover do in promoting this Nashville event?
   Perhaps both Smith and the Frances will be watching. They both want to add Cup events, Smith at Kentucky and Las Vegas, and the Frances at Kansas City. And presuming NASCAR itself (privately owned by the Frances) won't expand the Cup schedule, to add a Cup week Smith and the Frances would have to move an existing date from another track.
   And there are precious few Cup dates available. Dover itself has two, which are solidly attended. But business is business, and Dover, like Pocono (another independent track), has been rumored here and there for several years to be eyed, though president Dennis McGlyn insists nothing's going on to change what's going on.
   Meanwhile, it's no secret that newspapers in America – or rather the people running newspapers in America – are struggling. Most U.S. papers within the past year or so have drastically cut back on NASCAR coverage, all but dropping it.  Dallas and Fort Worth papers, despite having one of NASCAR's biggest tracks right in their backyard, have both dropped NASCAR coverage and fired those reporters. Philadelphia, Kansas City, even Atlanta and Nashville have been victim, with their long-time NASCAR writers summarily dropped…papers saying that NASCAR is simply "no longer relevant" to the audience they serve, or in how they want to serve that audience.
   That has NASCAR's dander up. After all newspapers have been a major source – almost free, in fact – of marketing and advertising for NASCAR racing over the years.
   And then The AP itself, which has been under attack by papers for charging too much, in the eyes of those who run papers, for its own content, is now blaming Google for sucking up all the internet news revenue and is threatening to try to block Google from carrying some of its content, or at least change how it presents it. 
   In retort Google CEO Eric Schmidt says it is newspapers themselves to blame for not using the internet as effectively as they could, and Google says newspapers simply dropped the ball on the internet – with slow servers and poor layouts.
   What happens next?
   Well, on the NASCAR side, some of those who have been bounced out of the newspaper ranks as NASCAR journalists, are starting their own NASCAR websites.
   How effective that is remains to be seen, of course.
   But those independent websites may offer the only independent views of NASCAR racing, now that newspaper are getting out of the game.
  
  

  
...or Kyle Busch? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)