Mother’s Day has always been a huge NASCAR tradition simply because they don’t race on the day. NASCAR founder Bill France always said he never wanted to see any mother have to watch their son get injured while driving during a race on their special day, but the real reason was closer to the fact that no one came to any of the tracks in the Bible Belt on that particular Sunday, so it was bad for business.
The tradition still goes on to this day as we get Saturday night racing on the 1.5-mile layout at Kansas Speedway. It’ll be the fourth of 11 races on 1.5-mile tracks this season, and first of two at Kansas Speedway. The other will come in October during the Chase.
If you’re wondering why Kansas has two race dates when a much better equipped and fun NASCAR experience in Las Vegas only has one, you just need to know that International Speedway Corporation (ISC), which owns Kansas Speedway, is a subsidiary of NASCAR. Las Vegas Motor Speedway is owned by the competing Speedway Motorsports Incorporated (SMI).
Three 1.5-mile races already in the books – Jimmie Johnson won at Atlanta, Brad Keselowski won at Las Vegas and Kyle Busch won at Texas. We can also look at the Fontana race, a 2-mile layout, but with similar banking to Kansas, where Johnson won as well.
Johnson also led the most laps (76) at Las Vegas and has a series-best 8.7 average finish in 19 Kansas starts, which includes three wins. Most signs point his way to winning again, but the driver I’m going to focus on this week is Joey Logano who has been Mr. Kansas over the past three seasons.
This is the perfect spot for him to bust loose for his first win.
Special Day Sunday
Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful Moms out there who sacrifice daily for their children, some with little reward until the kids have all grown up and realize just how special that maturation process all was. At least that was the case for me when I hit the real world and it all came back quickly to me what a great job my mother did for my two brothers and I.
She passed away in January, 2009, but I still regularly talk to her and thank her for all she did for us.
Sometimes I even get the chilling feeling she talks back and is still offering her advice.
On Sunday, my brothers and I will all celebrate her excellence as our mother and exchange our favorite mom moments. It’s a day I always look forward to. We miss you Mom.
Micah Roberts is a former Las Vegas race and sports book director, one of The Linemakers on SportingNews.com , and longtime motorsports columnist and sports analyst at GamingToday. Twitter: @MicahRoberts7 Email: [email protected].