“We believe the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule will once again provide fans with what they’ve come to expect every season – the world’s most exciting and competitive form of motorsports,” said Brian France, NASCAR chairman and CEO. “Next year’s schedule has a few adjustments that we think will be good for the fans and good for the overall flow of the season. One thing will remain constant, however, and that’s the intense competition we see week in and week out from our drivers and race teams.”

One of those adjustments takes place during NASCAR’s playoffs – the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup – and could affect the strategy during the championship run. Talladega Superspeedway’s Chase event moves up two weeks to Oct. 7, becoming the fourth race in the Chase. Often labeled as the wild-card track in the Chase, Talladega’s grueling test is now staged during the first half of the Chase.

Talladega swaps its Chase date with Kansas Speedway (Oct. 21) to accommodate Kansas’ repave, scheduled for after the track’s spring event. As such, Kansas’ spring date has also been moved. Kansas now will be the eighth race of the season on April 22. Talladega’s spring event moves to May 6, and Dover International Speedway’s spring event returns to its traditional spot on June 3.

As previously announced, the season-opening Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway will start one week later with the running of the preseason “non-points” Shootout at Daytona on Feb. 18. The 54th annual Daytona 500 will run on Feb. 26.

The race dates for Phoenix International Raceway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway have likewise been moved a week later, to March 4 and March 11, respectively.

Two other featured adjustments to the 2012 schedule:

Texas Motor Speedway’s spring date will be moved to April 14, to accommodate the traditional open week for the Easter holiday.

Daytona’s summer event and Kentucky Speedway’s race will swap weekends in 2012, as the July 4th holiday falls mid-week next year. Kentucky’s race will be June 30; Daytona will run on July 7.

As in past years, FOX will broadcast the first 13 races of next year’s schedule. TNT will follow, broadcasting the next six. ESPN/ABC will broadcast the final 17 events. Race start times will be announced at a later date.

NASCAR will also release the 2012 schedules for the NASCAR Nationwide Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at a later date.

2012 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES SCHEDULE

SMI also said it would hire professional parking and engineering services to manage automotive and pedestrian traffic flows during event days.

As a result, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet vowed to improve surrounding highways to allow faster access to the expanded parking areas.

Kentucky Speedway General Manager Mark Simendinger said:

We learned meaningful lessons during our inaugural NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race weekend and we committed that the traffic congestion that occurred on race day would not happen again. It was important for us to act quickly and I am thrilled to report this solution, which was formed in only seven short weeks. I compliment and thank SMI Chairman and CEO Bruton Smith, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and KYTC Sec. Mike Hancock for working collaboratively on this plan.

The new parcel of land is expected to increase parking capacity by 35%.

Like every inaugural event Kentucky had its fair share of problems, most notably traffic. Yahoo Sports is reporting that approximately 20,000 fans who had tickets for the Quaker State 400 weren’t allowed into the track because of parking problems. Both Kentucky Speedway general manager Mark Simendinger and Speedway Motorsports Inc. president Marcus Smith acknowledged the traffic problem and said they will work feverishly to fix this problem for the 2012 race.

The damage may have been done, though, as many angry fans took to the speedway’s Facebook page Sunday afternoon.

One fan posted:

Left our house that was only 60 miles away and sat in traffic for over seven hours, then was unable to park anywhere near the race and had to walk miles to get there, by the time we [were] about a mile away from the actual track, the race was over…none of the shuttles were even helping people and the idiots on the bike trolly wanted $40 dollars per person to take us one mile…EPIC FAIL, My FIRST NASCAR race and I did not see ONE CAR!!! Not to mention I am out $200.00 plus gas and a whole day and night with NOTHING to show for it!!

Another posted:

I’ve been to 62 NASCAR races. I’ve been to every track east of the Mississippi. I was at [Kentucky] and made it there with no problems, but I was one of the fortunate ones. Out if all of the races I’ve been to, this was the worst run. Kentucky should be ashamed [of itself]. Bruton [Smith] wants to blame [I-71], but his facility was the problem. There was nowhere to park. People want to mention the first Texas race as having the same problem. I was at that inaugural race as well and they are totally different. It [was pouring] and [they] couldn’t use some of the parking and 200,000 people were going there. [Smith] needs to step up and take responsibility.

Kentucky Speedway announced that race fans who weren’t able to make it to their seats for the race Saturday evening can either exchange their ticket for any other SMI track this year, or for a ticket to the 2012 Kentucky race. Smith issued a statement saying he “apologized on behalf of Speedway Motorsports” for the debacle.

I applaud everyone at SMI and Kentucky Speedway for stepping up and apologizing to the fans for this setback. I am glad to see they handled the situation professionally and are making the situation right by allowing fans to exchange their tickets for tickets to upcoming races.

What stood out most from the race weekend was the overwhelming amount of traffic.  Kentucky was excited about having a sold out crowd at their first Sprint Cup race.  Unfortunately, an estimated 5,000 fans didn’t even make it to into the track.

By late Saturday morning Interstate 71 was backed up for nearly 20 miles.  Eventually the speedway ran out of places to park cars and began turning fans away.  It got so bad that state police closed off the I-71 exit to the track.

“I think the basic issue was that cars just kept coming,” track general manager Mark Simendinger said.  “We parked a ton of cars. And they kept coming.  We parked cars in every square inch of this place.  The neighbors parked cars in all the remote lots that we had estimated that would have been more than sufficient for this crowd size, and yet they still kept coming.  That was the issue.  We’ll look at all the data, and we’ll figure it out.”

Being a race fan myself, this is very sad and frustrating to hear.  I can’t even imagine having to wait in five hours of traffic.  Much less getting turned away once I finally got to the track. Kentucky Speedway owes these fans big time.  It takes a lot of money to attend a NASCAR race.  Food, hotel fees, gas money, the expense of taking off from work, the price of tickets, etc.

Even if KS reimburses the fans for their tickets, that still isn’t enough, in my opinion.  These fans were excited to be apart of the first Cup race at Kentucky and that excitement was taken away from them from lack of planning.  The least that KS could do is apologize.

For the fans that didn’t get to watch the race, you didn’t miss much.  Kyle Busch had the pole and led for the first half of the race.  On lap 147, Brad Keselowski used pit strategy to get the lead from Busch.  It seemed as though Keselowski was going to steal the win.  However, a quick pit stop at the end of the race put Busch ahead of Keselowski and secured the inaugural win for him.

Busch has now taken the points lead from Carl Edwards by four points.

Dale Earnhardt Jr dropped to eighth in points after struggling all race long with handling issues and a late race blown tire.

In conclusion, I will be shocked if NASCAR decides to go to KS next year.  Kentucky has got to step up their game and do a lot of apologizing to get race fans back on their side.

That means that the track will qualify for as much as $20.5 million in performance-based rebates over a 10-year period, based on an investment of $82 million.

Kentucky is expaning the grandstands, parking and camping ahead of their Sprint Cup race. The Associated Press also covered the story.

While the track was designed for a Sprint Cup race, it has yet to host a Cup event there. Thus far the track has held Nationwide and Camping World Truck series races there. Additionally, the track has hosted IZOD Indy Car and Indy Lights series races there.

Top 5: Benson, Annett, Crafton, Dennis Setzer, and David Starr.

Kyle Busch, Mike Skinner, Terry Cook, Marc Mitchell and Ron Hornaday finished sixth through 10th respectively.

Notables: Stacy Compton (12th), Ted Musgrave (13th), Rick Crawford (14th), Jack Sprague (22nd), and Todd Bodine (27th).