Super Bowl vs. Daytona 500?

Here's a headache that NASCAR just really doesn't need to deal with right now.  According to USA Today, the NFL is considering expanding its regular season by one or two games, which would likely shift the Super Bowl to Presidents' Day weekend.

Talk about the Super Bowl as a national holiday.

How about as a lead-in to Presidents Day?

The prospect of extending the NFL's calendar and staging the league's signature event in the latter half of February is gaining momentum as team owners contemplate an expanded schedule with a typical end-game mission: More money.

What does that mean for NASCAR?  Well their own Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, would most certainly have to move to a new weekend as well.  But moving the race would be a logistics nightmare.  The schedule is already packed with nearly 40 events across 22 venues as it is.  The series begins and ends in cold months, limiting its early- and late-season races to Southern tracks.

The NASCAR season hasn't always started with the Daytona 500, but the 500 has always been run in mid-February.  Some would argue that NASCAR will have to buck tradition and move the race off Presidents' Day weekend to, perhaps, the end of the season.  However, the Daytona 500 is not just a race, but also the premier event of Daytona Speedweeks.  NASCAR and the Speedway have built a nice little two-to-three week series of races and events to help build excitement leading into the 500 (let alone the pre-season testing traditionally done in January at the facility).  NASCAR would have to abandon the Speedweeks approach altogether or attempt to juggle a variety of racing series' schedules to move it later in the year.

Running the Daytona 500 at the end of the season in November would pit it against the heart of the NFL season, a clear detriment to TV ratings and advertising revenue.  Running it in summer is out since the facility already hosts a 400-miler on Independence Day weekend.

What we do know is that the 2010 Daytona 500 is scheduled for February 14.  But as for 2011...?  Maybe it's best to hold off making those hotel reservations.