Going for his third Nationwide Series win at Gateway International Raceway this past weekend, Reed Sorenson came up a bit short with a little over 80 laps to go when his car got loose getting into Turn 3 and hooked onto the no. 29 car of Scott Wimmer. The two wrecked each other into the wall and collected the no. 1 of Mike Bliss along the way.

The incident really started when David Reutimann got into the back of Sorenson coming out of Turn 2, which got him loose going through the next turns, leaving him pinched up near the wall going into Turn 3.

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Even with the Sprint Cup Series taking the week off, it was still a busy weekend for Missouri native, Carl Edwards …. particularly because he decided to commit to a three-day bicycle trip from his hometown of Columbia, MO to the track that lies in Madison, IL - just outside of the St. Louis metro-area.

Edwards made the trip and got to the track in time to qualify third for the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 at Gateway International Raceway, and then passed Jason Leffler with 48 laps remaining en route to picking up the win Saturday night. The win gave Edwards his second Nationwide Series win of the season, and the second of his career at Gateway.

Driving the dominant no. 20 car for Joe Gibbs Racing in just his fifth NNS start, Joey Logano started the race fourth and finished second, as he was unable to track down Edwards in the closing laps of the race. Jason Keller, Jason Leffler, and Brad Keselowski completed the top-five finishers, with rookie driver, Landon Cassill, running in 6th.

An incident involving David Reutimann and Brad Keselowski brought out the final caution of the day. The restart came on lap 146 with Edwards running third behined Jason Leffler and eventual 7th place finisher, James Buescher. The top two cars, however, took only two tires under the caution period, with Edwards taking four, which ultimately made all the difference in the world, passing Leffler for the lead just six laps later.

Earlier on a lap 116 restart, Landon Cassill got into the back of Scott Wimmer, setting off a chain reaction that eliminated the cars of Mike Bliss, Steve Wallace, and defending race winner, Reed Sorenson. Polesitter, Jamie McMurray, was in the lead at the time, but later retired with engine problems after lap 152.

Points leader, Clint Bowyer, finished 8th; David Ragan was 10th; and Marcos Ambrose ran in 15th. The hometown favorites of Mike, Kenny, and Steve Wallace finished 11th, 18th, and 26th respectively. Kenny was the only one of the three to lead any laps during the race.

Clint Bowyer and Brad Keselowski maintained the top two spots in the Nationwide standings, while Carl Edwards jumped up a spot to #3, where he now sits 201 points out of first.

Complete Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 Results.

Nationwide Series Standings (from nascar.com):

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It’s going to be a big weekend coming up for the Wallace’s as the NASCAR Nationwide Series makes a trip to St. Louis this weekend for the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 at Gateway International Raceway, hometown to brothers Mike and Kenny Wallace. Considered to be the home track for the Wallace family, the track has been kind enough to name the grandstands in Turns 1 and 2 after the Wallace’s, and even honored them by placing their name on the race itself during older brother, Rusty’s retirement year.

Despite all of the hometown recognition, though, a member of the Wallace family has never put a tally in the win column since the Nationwide Series began racing here back in 1997, but they’ll have a prime opportunity to change that this weekend. Mike Wallace is having one of his finer seasons as he currently sits 8th in points and would like nothing more than to notch one up here in front of his hometown fans. He nearly did just that back in 2005 when he finished 2nd here in an Evernham Motorsports car. Mike will also be an honorary guest at the St. Louis Cardinals game on Thursday where he will throw out the first pitch of the game.

Kenny Wallace will also attend the race, as will Steven Wallace, who will be driving for Rusty Wallace Inc, the team owned by his father, Rusty Wallace. That team is still looking for their first win of the season. Steven is currently 12th in the points standings, and Kenny is 18th. All three Wallace’s will also compete in a dirt track race at Tri-City Speedway on Friday in Pontoon Beach, IL.

Mike’s daughter, Chrissy Wallace, will be competing this weekend as well. Chrissy will make the third Craftsman Truck Series start of her career on Saturday in the Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway. To date, she’s finished 18th at Martinsville and 20th at the Milwuakee Mile.

The headlines have poured across the newspapers and internet for the last couple of days, and it’s become a hot topic of debate on morning radio as I learned today while listening to Elliot in the Morning on my way into work. For those of you that have been stuck under a rock or just don’t care, and therefore are not familiar with what I’m talking about, earlier this week Anheuser Busch received an unsolicited offer from InBev, a European brewing company and the largest in the world, to purchase Anheuser for a reported $46.3 billion, which would make it the largest cash transaction in history, and the second biggest acquisition of a consumer product.

Anheuser Busch is the largest beer distributor in America, with their top products including Budweiser, Bud Lite, Busch, Natural Lite, Michelobe Lite & Ultra Lite, and a slieu of others. While some of the Busch family members are strongly opposing such a deal to take place, many reports are indicating that the others are pushing for further negotiations. The problem is that even if the entire Busch family wanted to say no to the offer, they control only 4.5 percent of the total company, and no single family member owns more than 1 percent of the shares. So, the decision may not entirely be their’s to make.

The latest reports state that in an effort to ward off the attempts of a takeover, the family has entered negotiations with Grupo Modelo, the makers of Corona. Anheuser already owns a non-controlling 50 percent of Modelo, and the discussions between the two companies are still a bit vague at this point, but the potential ultimate end goal would be to make the combined company too large for InBev to be able to pull the trigger on.

Okay, so there’s the long and skinny of what’s happening. Right about now, I’m sure you’re checking back up at the top of the page to make sure that this is indeed a NASCAR site, and are now asking yourself why on Earth I would be taking so much time to cover this topic. Well, since you asked, allow me to explain:

Anheuser Busch is headquartered in my hometown of St. Louis, MO. With Gateway International Raceway located just outside of the St. Louis area, and given NASCAR’s recent expansion through the midwest, St. Louis is a growing market for NASCAR. There may be a laundry list of reasons why NASCAR has not given Gateway a Cup race despite the track’s petition for one, but somewhere on that list would be St. Louis’ declining economy. Known as one of the country’s leading banking and car manufacturing markets, several St. Louis residents have recently suffered from mass layoffs with the spike in foreclosures effecting the mortgage industry, and reported losses in 2007 have caused Ford to close plants and Chrysler to cut back personnel. Despite the fact that InBev has made statements regarding that they would not shut down any of AB’s plants, general concensus is that there would still be several cutbacks on employment and that St. Louis would likely lose its status as the company’s headquarters. More layoffs seem inevitable should a deal be struck, and with even less resvenue flowing into the area, it could easily negatively influence future endeavours that Gateway may have planned. 

On an even larger scale, what does this say for America’s economy as we continue to see foreign investors taking control of American products?

As it relates to NASCAR itself, with the recent downward spiral of America’s economy, the sport has experienced some rough goings as of late when it comes to sponsorship. When a team like Yates Racing has drivers sitting 18th (Travis Kvapil) and 23rd (David Gilliland) in the points standings, and even with the backing of Roush-Fenway Racing, the team still cannot lock on permanent sponsorship, you know something’s amis. NASCAR has also seen a bit of sponsorship changes in its two main series within the last decade, with Winston pulling out of the Cup Series, opening the doors for Nextel and then Sprint after their acquisition of that company, and then Anheuser pulled its Busch label off of what is now known as the Nationwide Series. There have even been talks of Craftsman pulling out of the Truck Series in the near future. Yet, Budweiser has been a long-standing sponsor in NASCAR’s premier series, and is still widely associated with their sponsorship of NASCAR’s most popular star, Dale Earnhardt Jr, though their loyalties have now been placed on the hood of Kasey Kahne’s no. 9 Dodge owned by Gillete-Evernham Motorsports. But, if Anheuser were to sellout, as a Euro company, would InBev still wish to remain connected to NASCAR? And, even if so, would the Budweiser logo still maintain its appeal?

Finally, what about NASCAR’s tradition? It’s a sport that was designed for the cars to turn left because European cars turned right. We race on ovals because the rest of the world races on roads. Yet, now we’re going to Mexico and Canada every year for the Nationwide Series, we’re soliciting non-American citizens to compete, and we’ve got a foreign car model running the most horsepower in every race.  I can tolerate a couple of trips across the border, I like diversity, and I’ve learned to live with Toyota. So, in essence, I’m okay with all of that … but, where does it end?

And, you know what, if you can identify with symbolism, then you might even say that NASCAR symbolizes modern-day America in those regards. As a former Marine and a red-blooded American that stops the fast forward on the DVR so that I can listen to the National Anthem everytime it’s on and gets a sense of pride each and every time I see that American flag, I have to wonder what has happened to our sense of tradition. As one of the largest and most profitable companies in America - as well as the leading US beer distributor for over HALF A CENTURY -  people like the good folks at Anheuser Busch are the ones that have the power restore tradition, remind us of our roots, and fend off an economic takeover. We beg of you … stop the bleeding.

*Credit photos to Newscom.