During the 2009 off-season, NASCAR announced few calendar changes, including moving the race at Memphis Motorsports Park to Gateway due to the closure of Memphis. The short track of Milwaukee was also replaced with the road course at Road America, which hosted its first NASCAR race since a Cup race in 1956.
This was also the last season where Cup Series drivers could run for points in the series. NASCAR implemented this change after Cup drivers won the Busch/Nationwide championship over the series regulars for the fifth straight year in 2010.
Schedule
The Bucyrus 200 at Road America in June
Schedule changes: Phoenix and Nashville moved ahead of Texas in April. The spring race at Dover preceded the Charlotte weekends due to the extra week in May before Memorial Day. Because of the closure of the Memphis track, Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Illinois, also hosted a second race in October. Milwaukee was dropped from the schedule due to issues with the promoters, as the Wisconsin State Fair was attempting to hire a new promoter following the previous promoter's sanctioning fee nonpayment. That date went to Road America.
Note: all race dates, names, distances, television and radio stations and start times are subject to change.
^ abDennis Setzer qualified the No. 92 car at Dover I (race #11), but was replaced in the race by Brian Keselowski after he failed to qualify in his own No. 26 car.
The new cars featured the new safety improvements of the Sprint Cup Car of Tomorrow including a larger greenhouse area, however they included a molded front splitter and a classic style spoiler (instead of the Sprint Cup's wing). The new cars also are designed to look more like their street counterparts than the Sprint Cup Car of Tomorrow. Chevrolet continued to run the Impala and Toyota continued to run the Camry nameplates, however Dodge ran the Challenger and Ford will run the Mustang.
TV and radio
United States
ESPN held the broadcast rights for Nationwide Series races. Most events was broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2 in the United States. Practice and qualifying sessions was broadcast on SPEED or ESPN2 depending on their agreements.
International
The Nationwide Series was broadcast in Australia on Network Ten's Digital sports channel, ONE, in Standard and High Definition. Broadcasts included both full races, typically on a Sunday morning, local time, and 1-hour highlights packages several times during the week. Live flag-to-flag coverage of the races in shown on SPEED for Latin America.
The Bucyrus 200 was held June 19 at Road America. It was the first NASCAR-sanctioned race at Road America in Wisconsin. Carl Edwards took the pole in the #60 Fastenal Ford Fusion and led 35 laps. Because of the unique layout of the track, Road course ringers such as Tony Ave, Ron Fellows, Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Long, J. R. Fitzpatrick, Kevin O'Connell and Alex Kennedy were picked up by numerous teams to substitute for Nationwide Series regulars. Jacques Villeneuve was one of 2 road ringers to lead laps in the race (the other being Patrick Long), though Edwards was able to hold off Ron Fellows to win the race.
The Food City 250 was held August 20 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Elliott Sadler took the pole but Kyle Busch won the race. Busch wrecked Brad Keselowski with 31 laps to go, leading to Keselowki calling Busch "an ass" during driver introductions for the following day's Cup Series race.
The NAPA Auto Parts 200 was held August 29 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Marcos Ambrose took the pole in the #47 Toyota, and although he controlled the race early on, he lost a spark wire with less than 20 laps to go. Then the race was controlled by Robby Gordon who went on to run out of gas on the final restart, giving the race to road course ringer Boris Said. It was the first win by a road course ringer since Ron Fellows' victory at this track in 2008.
Declaring for points in one series: Rules change for 2011
This was the last season where Cup Series drivers could run for points in another series. NASCAR implemented this change after Cup drivers were winning the Busch/Nationwide championships over the series regulars for 5 years straight (2006-2010). If the change had been implemented for the 2010 season, Allgaier would have been the champion. The rest of the top 10 in the standings would have been Bayne in 2nd, Leffler, Steve Wallace, Brendan Gaughan (who finished 11th in points), Reed Sorenson (12th), Michael Annett (13th), Brian Scott (14th), Mike Bliss (15th), and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (16th).
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