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NASCAR wants to hold a race at Franklin Field in Philadelphia (photo of Franklin Field via public domain)

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NASCAR Wants to Race at Franklin Field In Philadelphia

There are few things that get me less excited than NASCAR, cars just going around in circles over and over again. But I’m a firm believer in the democratic process and that this column can’t just be about me. And obviously NASCAR is a beloved “sport” to many. So here goes…

As part of an expansion plan, NASCAR is considering Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania for future races.

“The days of just building a rural track are over,” NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell told the Pocono Record. (Pocono Raceway is a major destination for NASCAR races; you just missed races there last weekend.) “But if we can build a track with some real estate development around it and partner with some people, we’re gonna look at major cities and bring the product to the fan base within the city as well.”

O’Donnell confirmed that Franklin Field is the location NASCAR is looking at in Philadelphia, saying, “It was one of the only places we could’ve put a race track inside.”

Franklin Field, which dates back to the late 19th century, is the oldest operating college football stadium in the country. The Eagles played there from 1958 until 1970, thereafter moving to Veterans Stadium.

There’s no timeline for when all of this NASCAR action might come to Philadelphia. So it sounds like you have plenty of times to learn your Kyle Larsons from your Denny Hamlins. (Yes, I googled this.)

The Amy Wax Watch

It’s been a while since we talked about Amy Wax, who is either a racist or a martyr for Free Speech, depending on whom you ask. Wax, who is serving a one-year suspensions from her University of Pennsylvania professorship over race-related comments she made, has been suing the university for punishing her, alleging that the school was racially discriminating against her and violating her First Amendment rights. She tried to get a judge to issue a preliminary injunction against Penn, but the judge just ruled against her, as the Daily Pennsylvanian reports.

The Mutter Museum Watch

It’s also been a while since we talked about the Mutter Museum, which has been struggling for years with its identity amid ethical controversies over keeping and displaying human remains. The New Yorker finally caught on to this mess, and does a deep dive in the new issue.

The Heat Wave Watch

If you were hoping that Wednesday might bring some relief from the heat, that’s not gonna happen. Though we’re not supposed to have a redo of Tuesday’s triple digits, we’re still looking at 96 degrees or so. The good news? We’re not supposed to see another day in the 90s through the weekend.

Headlines We Weren’t Expecting to See

“Alligator Named Ferdinand Recovered During Philly Eviction”

But How Do You Really Feel, Kae Lani?

Do you remember when famed New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells gave an infamously bad review to some Guy Fieri restaurant in Times Square? Well, I don’t think I’m understating it when I say that my esteemed colleague Kae Lani Palmisano just wrote what will become known as an infamously bad review of “the worst new bar in Philadelphia.” Everybody’s talking about it.

Speaking of Bad Bar Scenes…

Never been a fan of Center City Sips. It’s like amateur hour for happy hour. And it sounds like these three Center City bars aren’t big fans of it either, having pulled out due to all the “mayhem.”

By the Numbers

2: Shows still happening at World Cafe Live this week between Wednesday and Sunday. If that sounds like an anemic schedule to you, that’s because it is. Artists are refusing to perform there thanks to actions by the new leadership team.

0: Nonstop flights you can catch from Philadelphia to Doha (it’s in Qatar, in case you’re not up on your geography) now that American Airlines has suspended its service between the two cities amid rising tensions in the Middle East. But, hey, it’s 110 in Doha and 100 here, so you can almost get the Doha experience. Well, minus all the human rights abuses. Oh, well, actually…

15: Years that Rob McElhenney’s Philly bar Mac’s Tavern lasted before announcing that it was closing. The bar made the announcement on social media yesterday. Meanwhile, the 17th season of his show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia premieres in July.

Local Talent

If you’re wondering what’s new and fresh in the Philly music scene these days, look no further than KulfiGirls, which longtime Philly music scribe and current Philly Mag contributor Patrick Rapa describes as having “blazing riffs, venomous vocals and angular accents from a well-plucked veena,” an apt description if ever there was one. You can see them for free on Thursday night at Spruce Street Harbor Park. And you can listen to their first single, “Divinity”, right here.

LONG POND, Pa. — It’s time to bust out the brackets, pick an upset or two, and follow winners on the road — a journey over city streets, concrete and bricks — to the final four and beyond.

Totally awesome, baby?

Forget all the upset specials in March.

NASCAR will find out soon enough if its attempt to snap out of a mid-summer malaise with its first in-season tournament is a success with drivers and fans as it strives to boost engagement and build buzz in the staid regular season.

The concept has already juiced enthusiasm in NASCAR to levels not seen since the halcyon days when Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough duked it out in the 1979 Daytona 500.

“To be really honest with you,” 2020 NASCAR champion Chase Elliott said, “I have not paid any attention to it.”

Maybe a look at the matchup will get NASCAR’s most popular driver pumped!

Elliott is seeded fifth against No. 28 seed Austin Dillon in the first round of the head-to-head showdown in the race-within-the-race set for this weekend at the track better known as Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Here’s a refresher for Elliott and any other sports fan who missed out on the specifics of NASCAR joining the in-season tournament party, much like attempts in the NBA, NHL, and, of course, throughout the world in soccer.

NASCAR is set to start the engines on a five-race, bracket-style tournament called the In-Season Challenge in the midst of the summer slate, which comes with a $1 million prize to the winner.

The final 32-driver field was set by results of the last three races at Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono. The drivers are paired in head-to-head matchups based on seeding, with the winners advancing to the next round in a bracket format that mirrors the NCAA basketball tournaments.

Buoyed by a win at Michigan and a runner-up finish at Pocono, Denny Hamlin earned the top seed. He’ll square off — race off? — against No. 32 seed Ty Dillon. Pocono winner Chase Briscoe is the No. 2 seed and is pitted against No. 31 seed Noah Gragson.

Chris Buescher is third, Christopher Bell fourth and Elliott fifth, among notable names.

The format is single elimination with the field cut to 16 at the street race in Chicago, eight at Sonoma, four on the lone concrete track in the series at Dover and the final two over the yard of bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Challenge is part of NASCAR’s media rights deal that includes TNT, and the Atlanta-based cable network will broadcast all five races in the tournament, starting with the 400-miler in Atlanta.

Aside from a shrug from Elliott and a few others, drivers are intrigued by the idea of increasing the stakes in each race beyond a playoff berth, trophy and the winner’s purse.

“I love it. I think it’s great,” three-time Cup champion Joey Logano said. “I think it’s placed perfectly where it is in the season. This is kind of that moment where the newness is worn off. We’re into the rhythm, we’re racing every week. It’s starting to start a little bit of, who’s going to be in the playoffs, who’s not, the cutoff line all those types of things. But it’s not really the main story quite yet.”

Stories are what sell, of course, and the sizzle in Pocono during the weekend had little to do with which drivers or teams are the ones to beat for the 2025 championship. Rather, it was whether two pedestrian drivers were going to fight, the end of Amazon Prime’s run of wildly-popular telecasts and Hall of Fame driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s win in his first race as a crew chief.

“This really spices up the mid-part of the season,” Logano said.

So does placing a few bucks on No. 11 to win.

But as of Monday afternoon, most sports gambling sites did not offer odds on specific matchups headed into Atlanta. NASCAR is offering $1 million to a winning fan with a perfect bracket in its fantasy game.

There are some quirks to the bracket: Shane van Gisbergen won the Cup race in Mexico City and is not in the field while series points leader William Byron is only a No. 9 seed. The tournament boasts matchups in the first-round of past Cup champions (Kyle Busch-Brad Keselowski), former teammates (Briscoe-Gragson), and even best friends (Bubba Wallace-Daniel Suarez).

The idea for the challenge was largely championed by Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 champion who floated the idea of a mid-season tournament on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast. When NASCAR bought into the idea and announced the creation of the tournament last year, Hamlin called the tournament on social media “such a win for our sport and drivers.” He jokingly added, “I will collect my 1M royalty next season.”

Hamlin’s on deck and clearly a favorite to win it all, with three wins this year for Joe Gibbs Racing and the top seed. (And let’s not haggle about who gets credit in court.)

“I’m a sports guy, so I’m going to be engaged with it,” Hamlin said. “I’ll know who I will have to beat next week. I’ve told the team, we are going to try and do what we can. We are going to be up against it because we are going to tracks that aren’t very favorable to me. But we are going to try to do our best to beat that one car for the next four to five weeks.”

NASCAR will present the tournament winner at Indianapolis with a ring, jackets, trophy and — oh yeah, a million bucks.

That’s enough cash to get anyone’s attention — even Elliott’s.

“I don’t know what you get. You get anything,” Elliott asked.

“Oh, a million dollars to the winner? Then yeah, we want to win.”

It’s not just on the car; it’s in the cars.  Turner Motorsport uses the same LIQUI MOLY motor oils in their racecars as we can in our daily drivers. Thank you to LIQUI MOLY for supporting this column.

Same but different? The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach and the TireRack.com Monterey SportsCar Championship (let’s call them “Long Beach” and “Laguna Seca” going forward here) both have eleven turns and are both early stops along the thirteen event IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship season. And that’s about where the similarities end.

Laguna Seca is a full-time race track (and camp ground!) with plenty of run-off space.

After attending both races in the same month earlier this calendar year, I was amazed at how different (yet both awesome!) the events were considering there were, at least from a sportscar racing perspective, mostly the same drivers in the same cars for the same race teams. There isn’t a right or wrong, a better or worse. It’s similar to when your friend presents two cars and asks “which one would you want?” and the answer is a clear…“yes.”

Long Beach, with its temporary walls winding around existing landmarks, creates a narrow course without much room for error. (Justin Rothberg here had very few errors in a two-win weekend.)

Right off the bat, let’s look at attendance. Long Beach has been setting records in recent years and eclipsed 200,000 attendees this year. It might have to do with location, too. Laguna Seca doesn’t come close to that, but Long Beach’s track literally winds its way through city streets and includes both IMSA and IndyCar, among others.

The track in Long Beach is surrounded by fourteen packed grandstands and countless other places to catch the cars whizzing by.

To get to Laguna Seca, it takes specific effort and while you can get back to your hotel or home easily, lodging doesn’t loom over the track as it can in Long Beach. Yet for a unique twist at Laguna Seca, the race also encircles an active campground.

The tents on the surrounding hills remind attendees that Laguna Seca is an active campground.

Long Beach is an event that has racing.  Laguna Seca is a track you visit to watch racing. Long Beach has a central exhibit hall that does triple duty as a large vendor hall, an air-conditioned respite from the usual high temps, and the actual paddock for the GT America cars.

At Laguna Seca, you do have as many amenities and resources as you’ll need. And ease of access is relatively simple.

Laguna Seca has a few places to buy food.  Long Beach has few places where you can’t buy food. Long Beach wraps up its evenings first with the Super Drift Challenge and concerts well into the evening. Lagnua Seca usually goes quiet by 7:00pm, allowing the neighbors who have built their homes by the track some respite from the sounds of race cars.

Super Drift is incredibly popular as the sun sets Friday and Saturday evenings.

Both environments provide extraordinary access to the cars, teams, and drivers.  At both races, if you are in the paddock, look both ways or else you might get much closer to the cars than planned. BMW CCA local chapters at both tracks coordinate with the teams—usually Turner Motorsport, RLL, and Paul Miller Racing—for Meet and Greet events where the team owners, managers, drivers, and strategists share (some of) their secrets for and about the racing that weekend. You’re actually surrounding the racecar as the team scrambles to get it ready the forthcoming race, sometimes merely minutes following the gathering. If you seem too interested, they might hand you a tool and put you to work.

In addition to the IMSA racing, which includes GTP and GTD racing at both events, both weekends incorporate other racing groups or organizations. At Long Beach, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is sort of second fiddle (yet a large fiddle!) to the aforementioned Indy racing. There’s also an Historic Formula Exhibition, GT America races, Stadium Super Trucks (replete with ramps brought out onto the track mid day!), and Super Drift.

At Laguna Seca, in addition to IMSA’s Weathertech Sportscar Championship, you can watch IMSA’s Michelin Pilot Challenge and Mustang Challenge, and the Lamborghini Super Trofeo.  Both events provide great visibility to more types of racing to the fans of the other types. But if that wasn’t enough to sway you, Laguna Seca’s event hosted BMW parade laps around the track on Saturday, too. Come for one race, leave loving more racing.

Sure, it might not have been pushing the limits, but a parade lap on race weekend at Laguna Seca seems to bring out plenty of smiles.

As for track and racing comparisons, the best folks to provide that input are the ones racing.  “Long Beach is a really short race. There’s not a lot of driving, but it’s really intense, lined with walls with zero room for error,” BMW Factory and Turner Motorsports driver Robby Foley says. “The surface is unique with some pavement and some other concrete areas, but it does have a lot of grip. Our environment is tough. There isn’t a lot of space in the paddock or the pits. But it’s a really special event. I look forward to it every year.  You feel the heritage and passion from everyone there. You can also tell it’s a party for the fans, right there on the water. It’s special to be a part of it.”

Patrick Gallagher and Robby Foley pause (and maybe pose) during the Fan Walk at Long Beach during this year’s 50th Anniversary.

As special as Long Beach is to Foley, Laguna Seca has also captured a good part of his heart. “This is the first place I really drove,” Foley explains. “I did a racing school here when I was fourteen and have had a lot of success here with our Turner team. It’s also a beautiful place. I like the area in general. The track walk is incredible, giving us a chance to see some incredible views. TV does not do it all justice. It’s amazing to look at and a lot of tracks don’t have that surrounding beauty.

“There’s a lot of elevation change at Laguna Seca, especially compared to the completely flat Long Beach course,” he continues. “The Corkscrew is technical, but the rest of the course is not as much. You do have to be precise with where you place the car entering the Corkscrew; being off by a couple of feet at the top will really affect how you end at the bottom. Laguna is a little smoother with longer and definitely more open corners. At Long Beach, corners are more rushed but slower. There, they’re all second gear corners except the hairpin but most at Laguna Seca are third and fourth gear corners.”

Always nestled around the racecars, Will Turner and the Turner team host Meet and Greets at both Long Beach (seen here) and Laguna Seca.

Nothing ever wrong will Foley’s input, but we figured we’d get some input from the team principal Will Turner. His team has raced at Long Beach for more than ten years but he has personally raced—and won—at Laguna Seca. “There’s a very different feeling with these two tracks,” Turner says. “For me, you get a quality track at Laguna Seca and then amazing energy from fans at Long Beach. From a track perspective, the traditional course at Laguna Seca is more forgiving. Over the years, they have modified the track with gravel traps or at least room you need for run off. With Long Beach being a street course, there isn’t room for error. Long Beach at 100 minutes is a lot shorter. This usually means pit as soon as you can. At Laguna Seca, tire degradation has historically been the issue.”

Even while focusing on racing, it is difficult for the teams to not recognize the atmosphere at a race. “Long Beach seems to be all about the fans. They’re everywhere and we get motivated by their energy. The grandstands are full all around the track. With Laguna Seca, it’s almost like a secret. There isn’t really a centralization of fans at Laguna Seca. But, there is simply more room in the paddock for us and the fans up north. Fans can get closer to the cars and there is a little more flexibility in the schedule. The Meet and Greet events with the BMW CCA are great at both races. Those are a little smaller lately, especially at Laguna Seca, but we’re always excited to talk with members and fans.

“Between the two tracks, there couldn’t be any greater differences but both are so fantastic!” Turner summarizes.

Tags: Laguna Seca Long Beach race experiences

Bob Pockrass

FOX Motorsports Insider

Denny Hamlin has three “podium” finishes in his last three starts.

OK, so none of them actually had a real podium for a top-three finish. That only occurred at Mexico City, where Hamlin didn’t race in the days following the birth of his son.

But with a third-place finish, a win and a second in his past three starts, that’s good enough to launch him at the top of this list.

Denny Hamlin has been on a hot streak of late.

Here’s how the latest rankings shake out as Cup Series drivers enter a three-week stretch of some wild-card-type tracks, with the first being Atlanta race this weekend — a high-banked 1.54-mile oval that now races like drafting tracks Daytona and Talladega.

Dropped out: 9. Ross Chastain (Last Week: 9).

On the verge: Alex Bowman, Chastain, Ty Gibbs, Joey Logano, John Hunter Nemechek, Tyler Reddick.

Hamlin takes the top spot with three awesome finishes (third, first, second) in his last three starts. The JGR driver sits third in the standings despite having missed a race.             

Larson finished a respectable seventh after starting 24th at Pocono. The Hendrick driver has seven top 10s in his last nine starts.

Byron might have had the fastest car at Pocono on Saturday until he wrecked it during qualifying. He went for the stage points (he still has a 54-point lead on Kyle Larson as far as the battle for the regular-season title) and then got mired in traffic, losing spots to avoid a wreck and finished 27th.

Blaney rebounded from qualifying 20th to finishing third at Pocono. That’s a good day for the Penske driver, making the most out of what could have been a bad day.

Bell finished second a week earlier at Mexico City but never seemed to have the speed at Pocono. He qualified ninth and finished 17th, having been involved in a wreck in the second stage.

A solid fifth-place finish for Elliott was his fifth top-five finish this year. The Hendrick driver knows running in the top five often enough will lead to him competing for a win relatively soon.

Buescher placed fourth at Pocono for his third consecutive top-10 finish. The RFK Racing driver had the speed as he qualified on the front row.

Briscoe’s big victory at Pocono vaulted him into the playoffs and up a couple spots in these rankings. As a Joe Gibbs Racing driver, he should expect more wins and more weeks in these rankings.

A brake rotor failure ruined Wallace’s day Sunday at Pocono, and a starter issue stymied him in qualifying. But the 23XI driver had speed, as shown in the previous three races, where he had an average finish of 7.3.

Preece finished eighth at Pocono for his fourth top-10 finish in the last six races. The RFK Racing driver continues to find his way to race among the leaders.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro declined to get into specifics on the potential for the state to provide funding for any new sports arenas — a possibility that looms with the Eagles’ lease set to expire in 2032 — and said there were conversations about bringing NASCAR to Philadelphia as he championed the state’s full sports slate next year during an appearance Sunday at Pocono Raceway.

Shapiro said he would continue talking with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and the Rooney family in Pittsburgh about what — if anything — the NFL teams need when it comes to the state of their stadiums.

Pittsburgh’s Acrisure Stadium, the home of the Steelers, opened in 2001 while Lincoln Financial Field opened in 2003 in Philadelphia’s shared sports complex. The Eagles do not own the Linc. The team will need to renew its lease or build a new stadium, and Lurie said during the lead-up to the Super Bowl that he was “torn” over the idea of replacing the stadium or staying put in the home where they raised their only two Super Bowl championship banners.

If a new stadium is proposed, it won’t necessarily come with state money — Shapiro said the state would not provide any when the 76ers considered building a new arena (ownership did not ask for the funds) last year.

(The 76ers decided to partner with Comcast Spectacor, their current landlord, to build a new arena in South Philadelphia.)

“I’m very worried about the overall budget,” Shapiro said Sunday at Pocono. “I’m very worried about the overall economic situation given the federal cuts. You want to balance investing in tourism, investing in sports, investing in great arenas and facilities, with making sure that you’re also investing those dollars in things that Pennsylvanians need most.”

Shapiro, who spoke ahead of the scheduled NASCAR Cup Series race at the track, declined to get into definitive discussions about any stadium conversations with the state’s NFL owners.

“I will tell you that we want to make sure the Steelers, we want to make sure the Eagles, and all of our pro teams have outstanding places to play,” he said. “That are welcoming for fans. That generate revenue.

“We’re going to continue to dialog with them about what they need and what’s possible.”

Shapiro promoted the financial impact generated for the state each year because of the NASCAR weekend at Pocono. He praised Pocono Raceway officials for its third straight sellout crowd set for Sunday. The track sold out all frontstretch seating, premium seating, suites, infield camping and the grandstand camping area. It also is the fifth consecutive year that the entire infield camping inventory has been sold out.

Pocono President Ben May said the track sold around 50,000 grandstand tickets, around 2,000 suite seats and 3,300 camping spots.

NASCAR expressed at least a cursory interest in adding to its recent string of offbeat race locations — everywhere from Mexico City to a temporary track inside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — and floated the idea of holding a race inside a Philadelphia stadium, Franklin Field. The site is traditionally home to the Penn Relays and college football.

“There’s some conversations,” Shapiro said. “First and foremost, we don’t want to do anything that undermines Pocono. But as Ben (says), the more NASCAR the better. The more racing, the better. The more we can turn people on in communities that haven’t been to Pocono yet, to get excited about racing, and then make that trip to Pocono next year, the better. I want to see more NASCAR, more racing. I also just want to see more sports in general.”

He’ll get his wish next year.

Shapiro laughed when he said he calls into sports talk radio stations as “Josh from Juniata” and was all-in on the heavy inventory of major sports events headed to the state.

Among the events in 2026, Pennsylvania will host the baseball All-Star Game at Citizens Bank Park, the World Cup at the Linc and the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club. The big year kicks off with the NFL draft in Pittsburgh next April.

“I worked my ass off to bring that to Pittsburgh, together with the Steelers,” Shapiro said. “I’m excited for them.”

Shawn Langdon’s Top Fuel final-round victory at the American Rebel Light Virginia NHRA Nationals has been officially overturned following a post-race disqualification due to a technical violation. The NHRA announced Monday that Langdon’s run did not comply with SFI Spec 6.2, which mandates a minimum of 12 bolts securing the bellhousing inspection cover.

A post-run inspection revealed the cover on Langdon’s Kalitta Motorsports dragster was missing bolts, triggering the disqualification. In accordance with NHRA rules, runner-up Justin Ashley has been awarded the event win – his first of the 2025 season and the 16th of his Top Fuel career.

Ashley’s road to the final at Virginia Motorsports Park included wins over Doug Foley, Steve Torrence, and Doug Kalitta, further solidifying his return to form after a slow start to the season. The win also catapulted him to third in the NHRA Top Fuel points standings, marking his fifth final-round appearance in the last six races.

Kalitta Motorsports issued a statement Monday acknowledging the disqualification and offering an explanation for the infraction.

“Some of the bolts rattled loose during the run and fell into the belly pan,” said Chad Head, General Manager of Kalitta Motorsports. “The bolts were in place before the run, but some were not in place after because they came loose and fell into the belly pan. That’s on us.”

Head emphasized the team’s respect for NHRA’s safety regulations and accepted the ruling, stating:

“We respect NHRA as the sanctioning body and understand that safety is always the most-important thing. We certainly apologize to our corporate partners, the race fans, and our fellow competitors. We did not win yesterday’s race, but we’re moving on and are now focused on the next race.”

The team noted that this would be its only comment on the issue.

Langdon, a former Top Fuel world champion, appeared to have secured his first victory of the 2025 campaign in what was shaping up to be a momentum-building result for Kalitta Motorsports. Instead, the team is left regrouping as the series turns toward its next stop on the Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series schedule.

For Ashley and the Davis Motorsports team, the unexpected win marks a major turning point in their season, as they aim to continue climbing the championship ladder during the heart of the summer stretch.

This story was originally published on June 23, 2025.