Auto Racing: Hodges career hits bump in the road

This week it had been my intention to profile local racer Bobby Hodges. Hodges had an outstanding 2009 season, finishing 72nd in the NASCAR Whelen series.

He ran primarily at All American Speedway in Roseville, Calif., with races at Madera Speedway and Toyota Speedway in Irwindale, Calif., as well. In 22 races he scored two victories, finished in the top five eleven times, and had sixteen top ten finishes.

Unfortunately, it appears that this rising star's racing career has hit a bump in the road. Hodges e-mailed me from San Luis Obispo, Calif., where he is attending Cal Poly University as an engineering student, saying that his 2010 racing plans are on hold.

He wrote "...due to recent financial struggles, my racing career has come to a temporary halt. How temporary I cannot say, but it's not looking too good. And the idea of talking about racing no longer being a part of my life is too depressing to even consider. But once again thank you for contacting me and hopefully Richard Childress will just roll up my driveway one day and I'll give you something worth writing about."

So I wish Bobby the best of luck, and if there are any potential sponsors out there reading this, you can contact him through his Web site, bobbyhodges.com.

Given the situation, I'll devote the rest of the space this week to off-season NASCAR developments. The most recent one is the announcement by ESPN that they will air 14 Sprint Cup races, including nine of the ten Chase races. Only three races will air on ABC (all night races in prime time), versus eleven the past three seasons.

Of course, this has generated a lot of consternation, particularly among that 10 percent of Americans who still get their TV signal from an antenna rather than cable or satellite. But to listen to some of the comments regarding the decision, it's apparent that a lot of folks aren't aware of the history between NASCAR and ESPN. Those of us who lived through the dark ages of televised racing remember that it was ESPN that put NASCAR on the mainstream sports map, along with TNT and TNN.

For 20 years, beginning in 1981, it was primarily ESPN that brought NASCAR to television week in and week out. So, if you are one of the unlucky ones who for some reason can't get cable or satellite, find a good neighborhood sports bar that puts the races on one of their big screens, and plan to spend some time there.

The first big change we will see in NASCAR in 2010 is the Budweiser Shootout coming up at Daytona. The eligibility requirements for the race have been expanded to include all 2009 Chase qualifiers, all past Cup champions, all past Shootout winners, all previous winners of Daytona points races, and the current Cup rookie of the year. The idea is to increase the size of the field, although some conspiracy theorists claim that the changes were made to ensure that Dale Earnhardt Jr. gets into the Shootout.

Two adjustments to race lengths were also announced last week. The April 10 Phoenix race will be lengthened from 312 laps to 375 laps, while the October 10 race at California Speedway in Fontana will be shortened from 500 miles to 400. The lengths of the spring race at Fontana and the fall race at Phoenix remain unchanged.

And finally, a change that has not been officially announced, but is generating a lot of talk: a possible plan to replace the rear wing on the current Sprint Cup car with a spoiler. NASCAR is testing a spoiler in the wind tunnel and on the track for two reasons. One is to prevent cars from taking flight, as happened to Ryan Newman, Mark Martin, and others last season. And the other is to improve competition and enable more passing.

In any case, we probably won't see any change in car configuration until well into the season, if at all. But you might want to pick up a few die cast models with the wing, just in case they become a collector's item in the future.