What exactly is the NFL doing?  The Super Bowl is scheduled for February 5, 2012. Same weekend as this year.

Look for the nfl sched to change........

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The Daytona 500 will take place one week later in 2012, on the final Sunday in February, NASCAR has announced.

The race weekend is being pushed one week back from the traditional President's Day weekend to the final weekend in February. The date for the Daytona 500 is Feb. 26, 2012. To maintain the end of season schedule, the off Sprint Cup weekend typically scheduled in March will now be eliminated.

"When we look at the schedule in general, we've historically had an off week in that fourth week, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that hurts our momentum throughout the season. By being able to move the date back a week, we close up that off week, [and] NASCAR's able to keep the momentum throughout the season, which is great," said Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR senior vice president of racing operations.

The decision to kick off the NASCAR racing season one week later was made in close partnership with the sanctioning body, its broadcast partners including Fox, community partners and others within the industry. The rationale is three-pronged: 1. It shortens the racing season by one week; 2. It maintains momentum in the early part of racing season (TV viewership, media coverage, fan interest, etc.); 3. It's a better opportunity for fans as it moves the race further away from the "Daytona 500" of football held in early February.

O'Donnell added the move was made partly in advance of a potentially expanded NFL schedule.

"We're not going to deny the fact that part of this also is in dealing with the NFL. Who knows where they'll go with an 18-game schedule, but we want to get ahead of that. Either way, we think it's the right thing to do for our season," O'Donnell said. The Super Bowl is certainly a big event, but so is the Daytona 500, and to give fans an opportunity to go to both of those is certainly the right move."

Since fans like to plan their Daytona 500 trip well in advance, NASCAR is announcing the 2012 date much earlier in the season to minimize any inconveniences in planning their visit. Other schedule announcements for Daytona International Speedway, including Speedweeks, and other race facilities will be determined and announced at a later date.

"That's something that we'll develop with NASCAR as we work through this," Daytona president Joie Chitwood said. "I think the key [Sunday] was to make sure our fans knew that the event was moving back one week next year. We'll cycle through and deal with the Duels and the Shootout and all those things that go around Speedweeks."

The Budweiser Shootout has preceded the 500 by eight days, with the Gatorade Duel 150 qualifying races on that Thursday the week of 500.

Chitwood also said the Rolex 24 Grand-Am season opener, held on the last weekend of January this year, likely will move forward by one week, but that's contingent on discussions with the Daytona Beach Chamber of Commerce and the scheduling of bike weeks, an annual event that attracts motorcyclists from across the country.

"If I were to speculate, I'm sure that we'll cycle those back, as well, but we'll work with the chamber of commerce and the city of Daytona Beach to make sure bike weeks [typically the two weeks after the Daytona 500] have their spot on the calendar, as well," Chitwood said.

Sporting News Wire Service contributed to this report

It has been reported that the NFL is moving to an 18 game season in the "future".

NASCAR has announced its moving the 500 to the last weekend of Feb.

http://www.nascar.com/news/110220/daytona-500-date-2010/index.html

This has real interesting potential changes to Speedweeks throughout the Daytona area - including New Smynra.

It may make it more flexible for some teams to come down to Florida later too. It may also have the opposite effect.

Kelly - so tell us your overall impressions of the World Series (your opinion of the best highlights, etc.) and if memory serves, you were going to go watch the Camping World Truck race - what did you think of that race? Looks like the modified classes are way down in car counts as are the Limited Late Model's...

in point form
-car counts in the mods were way down, and i wonder how long that can go on
-llm counts were about what they've always been
-counts in the supers were as bad early in the week as i had ever seen them, the quality of the supers were also as bad as i had seen them, as the week moved along it got better, clearly the super teams could care less about the series and are far more interested in the big races at the end of the week
-the same can be said for tour type mods, of which I've become a fan of over the years, car counts were bad early, but the quality of the cars were good, as the week moved along, car counts went up peaking at the big race friday night, on saturday night, the counts went back, big race interest, no series interest
-the best racing by far was the crates.....lots of cars, lots of canadians, lots of success for the canucks, for the most part it's what we come down for anyway, so for us, the racing at new smyrna was great.
-ACT was fantastic.....I wasn't sure what to think, but the racing was tremendous
-we decided not to go to the truck race and opted to go to new smyrna for friday night racing, we watched the truck race, the last part anyway, in the bar at the track
-the weather was the best i think we've ever had
If i think of anything else, i'll post it