NASCAR chairman quashes weeknight races, more road courses

SONOMA, Calif. (AP) - NASCAR is unlikely to add a road course to the Chase for the championship schedule because it would be hard to get one moved into the Sprint Cup schedule.

NASCAR Chairman Brian France spoke briefly on Fox Sports 1's "Race Day" program before Sunday's race at Sonoma Raceway, and said of adding a road course to the Chase, "the reality is it is very hard to get the schedule to match up."

France also dismissed the idea of holding races on weeknights but didn't rule out moving the annual All-Star race from Charlotte Motor Speedway.

"There's a lot of interest in that very interesting event, and Charlotte has been good to us for a lot of reasons, but we'll always keep that open," France said.

Other topics France discussed:

- How he rates the current racing: "I never give it a 10 because we're always a work in progress, but I think the racing (is) markedly better. It's our biggest challenge to balance the rules packages that offer the best style of racing for us, but we're on our way. We're real happy with things."

- Running the Daytona 500 in prime time: "I would like to see more people watch the Daytona 500, so obviously that means the closer we get to prime time - I'm not sure we'll actually get into prime time, but the further the time, the more people that watch, that's in our best interest."

- Shorter races: "We'll continue to look at it. We'll look at the format as well, not just the length of time, how it is structured and halftime breaks. We've done that in some other series. We'll look at formats in particular, but we're OK with length of time."

- A title sponsor to replace Sprint at the end of the season: "Several companies are here (at Sonoma), a number of companies taking a very hard look. It's a very special asset in sports. It's the only thing you can own outright, so we have a lot of interest and we want to make a good decision."

- Concerns about marketing stars after Tony Stewart's retirement: "I would be if we didn't have such a talented group of young drivers. We have a lot of talent coming, and some with some big names. They're talented, by the way, and at the end of the day, that's what drives this sport is talent, and we've got a lot coming."