But NASCAR’s season runs so long, it defies association with any one season. Technically, the other sports do as well, but not to the extent of NASCAR. (The Redskins open training camp today, ahead of a week of sweltering heat and humidity. But that will hardly be the case during the final snap of the season.)
For us in the Mid-Atlantic, NASCAR starts in the depths of winter and ends when the cold is just beginning to make its inevitable return. It was only three seasons ago when Michael Waltrip won the weather-shortened Daytona 500; further up the coast, we were all but snowed in.
The snow melts, NASCAR keeps running. The flowers bloom, NASCAR keeps running. The heat intensifies, NASCAR keeps running. The leaves change, NASCAR keeps running. Turkeys are served at Thanksgiving, NASCAR keeps running. (Well, almost. The season finale in Homestead will be four days before Thanksgiving.)
Then, it’ll be four months before the drivers hit the track for a points race. But before then, there’s the NASCAR banquet in New York, January Thunder (Daytona testing) and Speedweeks.
That leaves December as the only month barren of any sort of NASCAR testing or racing.
The discussion harkens back to an entry not long ago about Nextel Cup’s grueling schedule, com-pared with other pro sports leagues. But I don’t mean to rehash that; but it occurred to me that certain markers throughout the year tell us it’s time to get cranked up again.
Redskins training camp means that college and high school football are just around the corner. High school football playoffs signal the start of winter sports. After that, I’m working on wrapping up high school wrestling and kicking off high school baseball concurrently. And all of that, for me at least, overlaps the Redskins, Washington Nationals and Potomac Nationals.
And for the most part, NASCAR is there with all of them. It never ends. At least that’s how it seems.

We stayed in Indiana for a week, and we had plenty of time to take in the sights and have a little fun in between getting all of our work done.

I’d never stepped foot in Indiana, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever return. So I made sure I made the trip over to the speedway one morning.

The track was massive. It seemed to be so much bigger than Pocono – where I’d covered several races in a previous job in Pennsylvania – even though both tracks are similar sizes.

What struck me most about the track is that the stands ran right along the street. To get into the track, my taxi driver had to go through an entrance that went under the stands and under the track; there was no buffer zone like you might find at a place like Richmond.

Perhaps the most unusual feature of the track is the Brickyard Crossing golf course. The course sits just outside of the backstretch, and four holes – 7 through 10 – are in the infield. (I don’t know if I’ll ever be back to Indianapolis, but it is my full intention to play around there. In fact, it ranks No. 2 on my list of golf courses to play at, behind only Pacific Dunes in Oregon.)

What was disappointing about the trip was that Pontiac, a big Final Four sponsor, was having a test drive of some of its vehicles at the track. But because of the rainy weather, no test drives were being held.

So my chance to actually get on the track was thwarted. (That would have been my second such excursion. Back in the old days at Pocono, when we left the track after the race, we would drive backwards around Turn 3 and out a gate halfway down the short stretch. At Richmond, I only parked in the infield once; and they had a tunnel under Turn 3 for just such traffic.)

Given the history, it was easy to see why IMS is so highly regarded. Even now, it’s the only track to host NASCAR, IRL and Formula One. Just to get a chance to see it was cool.

Now, I just have to make it back for 18.

And Parsons vowed to fight through it. We can only hope he succeeds.
Though I’m not the biggest fan of his commentary, there’s a time and place for that, and this is neither. It’s tough to see anyone go through the difficult process of chemotherapy, and it must be especially tough for someone to do so in the public eye.
At the same time, that could also be uplifting. The PR releases that I read had Parsons’ work e-mail on it, and responses are likely flowing in. That can help buoy someone through a time when they most need the support.
We’ve all been touched by cancer at one point or another. Though both of my grandfathers passed away before I was born, my maternal grandmother remarried. Her second husband was the only grandfather I’ve ever known, and he passed away from cancer in 1995.
My aunt developed breast cancer just before my senior year of high school and died just during the opening week of football practice. I remember the date because I couldn’t make the funeral in Richmond; instead, when time allowed, I’d stare at the clear blue sky and wonder why something so insidious had to happen to a person that was so kind.
Cancer has touched us all in some way, whether through someone we know or, as racing buffs, through Benny Parsons. The hard part for him is just beginning, but we can all pray that he pulls through.

The biggest difference, of course, is that the Redskins, Nationals, Capitals, Wizards and all of their league counterparts play home games. In fact, usually half of their schedule is spent at home. In Cup, all of the major teams are located in suburban Charlotte; that means they run a grand total of three home races: The All-Star Challenge, the Coke 600 and October’s Bank of America 500, the three races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.

From arrival until departure, Cup teams can spend two-and-a-half days at a race site, from early Friday until Sunday afternoon. That doesn’t sound like much, but considering they do that on 34 weekends, it’s a grind. Thirty-four weekends times three days each equals 102 days on the road just for racing. (That, of course, doesn’t count driver appearances.)

Compare that to the Nationals’ 162-game schedule. Half of that – 81 games – is spent on the road. Add in days on which they travel but don’t play, and the number may push close to 100. And most will agree that Major League Baseball has the most grueling schedule.

It would seem that NFL teams, which play once a week, would offer the most direct comparison. But that doesn’t stand up. NFL teams arrive in their opponents’ city the day before the game. There might or might not be some meetings before heading to bed. The next day, they play the game and leave.

The two-plus days a Cup team spends at a race site is filled with practice, qualifying, Happy Hour and finally a race. (At least that’s how it was in the old days. NASCAR now occasionally impounds cars after qualifying, eliminating Happy Hour.)

So it is a grind, to be sure. Kurt Busch is even taking the off weekend to get married.

There’s not much time otherwise to pull off something like that. Busch is smart for taking the chance while he has it.

Winston-Salem Journal writer Mike Mulhern details a post-race meeting between Stewart and crew chief Greg Zippadelli, where Zippadelli seemed less-than-pleased with Stewart. Maybe, just maybe, that could open Stewart’s eyes to the fact that his frontier-style justice affects others, too.
There. Told you it would be brief.
While Hamlin and Stewart dominated the headlines, a lesser-known fact slipped further down in the stories: Besides Hamlin, the most consistent drivers at the Pocono races this season have been Kurt Busch and Brian Vickers.
Busch was second in both races behind Hamlin. In the June race, that began a run of top-10s for the elder Busch; the streak reached five races before a wreck at Loudon left him with a 38th-place finish.
That has helped to turn around an otherwise forgettable season. Prior to the first Pocono race, Busch had top 10s at Bristol, where he won, and a seventh at Talladega. And that’s it.
Vickers, a lame duck driver at Hendrick Motorsports who is headed to Red Bull Racing next sea-son, finished fourth in both races. Besides the Pocono races, Vickers has just three other top 10s all season.
Vickers is essentially eliminated from the Chase for the Nextel Cup. He’s 16th in points and more than 350 points behind Stewart, who is 10th. Busch’s situation is not as bleak, but he’s 13th in points and around 160 points behind Stewart. Busch will have to make up 120 points just to catch Greg Biffle, who is in 12th.