Tight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Heads To Charlotte
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes to Charlotte on Sunday night for the Coca-Cola 600 at a track with a reputation for belonging to one driver, but a recent history that suggests otherwise.
“Charlotte is known as the home of Jimmy Johnson,” TheSportsNotebook’s resident NASCAR consultant Bill Flaherty (who doubles as the writer’s brother) told me. The Charlotte Motor Speedway is sponsored by Loew’s, the same hardware company that also sponsors Johnson, but JJ also won five of six races there in 2003-05. But just as the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry peaked from 2003-05, so did Johnson’s dominance in Carolina. Over the last five years, Charlotte has continued to host two races per year and we’ve had 10 different winners. Johnson’s one of them, but that’s parity that the NFL would smile upon.