Directors of the International Speedway Corp., which owns and/or operates 13 major speedways in this country, has nominated Edsel Ford II, the great grandson of Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford, as a director of the company. He would fill the unexpired term of the late Bill France, Jr., who died in June at age 74. Board confirmation of his nomination is expected in November. Ford, 58, who recently authored a guest column for this newspaper, has been a board member of the Ford Motor Co. since 1988. For years an avid motorsport enthusiast, Ford called ISC “A strong company with a long track record of success, and I look forward to helping them along that path.”   

Shortly after Round one of NASCAR’s Chase for the Championship aired live on ABC TV, the network reported a NASCAR newsbreak would be part of its Sunday night network newscast. Ending that newscast was a publicity piece on young black driver Marc Davis, a development driver for Joe Gibbs Racing, who the network called “The Tiger Woods of auto racing,” noting Davis is the first black in top-level NASCAR racing since Wendell Scott.

Stories are circulating that the one-mile New Hampshire Int’l Speedway oval track — which hosted Round one of the Chase finale Sunday — is being sought by Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports, Inc. as well as by the newly expanded Roush-Fenway Racing organization. So far NHIS owner Bob Bahre isn’t talking.

Reports indicate NASCAR’s Message Board was virtually overwhelmed by responses to the announcement by Joe Gibbs Racing that it was dropping Chevrolet after 16 years and switching to Toyota. Close to 500 messages appeared during the first hour following the announcement, many from disappointed Chevy fans. There’s no question Toyota is big on NASCAR, having initially wet its feet in 2004 in the Craftsman Truck Series with its Tundra pickup and winning the manufacturers championship in 2006. Toyota is now selling off half of the 89-acre land parcel it recently acquired in Rowan County, N.C., and plans to build a chassis engineering facility on its remaining acreage there. Toyota says it will employ as many as 40 engineers at this new facility. Early resistance to Toyota’s NASCAR entry into in what some call “The All-American Sport” has dwindled substantially, according to Toyota’s National Motorsports Manager Les Unger.

Despite his occasional public criticisms of NASCAR, two-time Nextel Cup champion Tony Stewart is currently in negotiation with his team owner Joe Gibbs for a driving contract renewal when his current pact runs out after the 2008 season. No comment from Gibbs — one way or the other — on his feelings toward his new driver-to-be Kyle Busch, who spilled the beans on Gibbs going to Toyota long before the announcement date.

To help promote its Oct. 28 Pep Boys Auto 500 Nextel Cup race and all supporting events, Atlanta Motor Speedway has created a new Web site: www.AmsInstantWin.com. It offers many prizes, instant winners, plus a grand prize winner who will receive tickets to all three of the track’s closing weekend events, a reserved parking pass, and two NASCAR Hot Garage passes.

Have you noticed how closely Swiss-born tennis champion Roger Federer resembles star driver Jeff Gordon?  Last week the nation’s sports pages were full of photos of the 28-year-old Federer after he won the U.S. Open and millions of dollars. As for Gordon, now 36, do you recall those “baby pictures” of him in his early days as a midget racing car driver and those early-day mustaches to make him look older? Take a hard look at the next close-up of Gordon when it appears on TV and note the gray hair creeping into his sideburns.

It’s been two weeks since the 63-year-old daredevil pilot Steve Fossett disappeared into thin air in his tiny plane over the western Nevada desert. Fossett’s last flight was said to have been a search for a dry-lake bed on which he could try for a world land speed record for jet-powered cars, currently 722 miles per hour.

The latest Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club newsletter tells of Don Kotarski’s fatal crash driving his NAMRA Series Indy Car during a practice run at the Whittemore Speedway last month. The driver, the club and the track are all new to us.  

Last week we dealt with IMPA’s Test Days at Pennsylvania’s Pocono Raceway. On the other side of the country the Motor Press Guild’s MPG Track Days — a parallel undertaking — takes place Nov. 6-7 in Rosamond, Calif., at Willow Springs Int’l Raceway. Details from www.motorpressguild.org. The 2007 IMPA Membership Roster & Automotive Industry Contact List is one of the most informative tomes one involved in motorsports cannot live without, 240 spiral-bound pages of golden data.