A new twist undertaken to boost attendance at the road course at Virginia Int’l Raceway was an air show added to a recent racing weekend there. A few club members own small planes, and were invited to fly them in, do some aerobatic acts, and then land on the broad reach of VIR’s grassy lawn and display them to contestants and fans alike. It was very well received.

With this country’s leading sprint-car racing weekend — the Knoxville Nationals — coming up in Iowa Aug. 6-9, a call has gone out for volunteer workers to assist in the Fan Fair part and at the museum. Interested? Call Lori DeMoss at the track at (800) 874-4488.

Hard to figure. Friday night’s Ford Power Stroke Diesel 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis had only six Fords and no diesels in the 34-truck field. When the checkers waved, the brand-name rundown was Toyota Tundra, Chevy Silverado, Ford F-150 with the best Dodge Ram checkering 18th.

“Too busy to do the Indy 500,” is a quote attributed to Tony Stewart, a driver and new NASCAR team co-owner, whose hometown of Columbus, Ind., is just a stone’s throw from the famous speedway at which he has contested five Indy 500s, one from the pole position. Stewart’s rationale is that getting his new Stewart Haas NASCAR team up and running is just too much work to take time out to do the Indy 500. He noted that not having a winning car at his disposal played a role in his decision. Stewart also must be pondering his 2008 season, currently winless in Cup — as is Jeff Gordon’s — while the Sprint Cup Series can boast four first-time winners this season.

Afraid of the dark? One might ask that of driver Kevin Harvick, interviewed at Chicagoland Speedway prior to the mid-July night race for Sprint Cup teams. He allowed he did not care for night racing as it might not be the best thing for racing. Harvick made it clear he feels NASCAR races should air the same day and time every weekend. He said same-time showing every weekend would keep race fans from forgetting the race telecasts.

According to NASCAR rookie Dario Franchitti, he is not the only one who lost his job when car owner Chip Ganassi parked his No. 40 Sprint Cup Dodge for lack of sponsorship. “It was a big shock when it happened,” Franchitti said, adding, “Me and 70 other people lost their jobs, too.”

Taking a hard look at what today’s high gas prices are doing to race-track ticket sales led Atlanta Motor Speedway head man Ed Clark to retain Blue Sky, a local marketing agency, to promote AMS events in the immediate neighborhood of the track, where the price of gasoline will not be a factor.

The recent purchase of U.S. brewing Anheuser-Busch and its Budweiser brand by the Belgian InBev company has upset many American followers of auto racing, which Budweiser has long supported. The feeling is that Bud’s familiar presence at U.S. raceways might be minimized or even abandoned. That sale is the most recent of a major U.S. brewer to foreign interests. In 1999, Miller Brewing was sold to South African SAB Miller, while in 2005 Canada’s Molson Brewing purchased Colorado’s Adolph Coors brewing company. Budweiser’s annual ad spending is said to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, of which a portion has gone to support its U.S. motorsport presence. The $52 billion buyout of Anheuser-Busch by InBev portends a profit of one to two million dollars for Cindy McCain, wife of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, based on her ownership interest in Hensley & Co., the exclusive distributor of Budweiser products in the State of Arizona.

The Indy Racing League got some important exposure in recent days. When Izod celebrated its new designation as the official apparel supplier to the IRL, a huge billboard showing Rahal-Letterman driver Ryan Hunter-Reay appeared above the ESPN Zone in New York City’s Times Square, a popular section of Manhattan.

Do you believe it? A recent wire story appearing in newspaper sports sections cited a Forbes Magazine report that Jeff Gordon had edged out Dale Earnhardt, Jr. as NASCAR’s highest-paid driver, now at $32 million annually, one million dollars more than Earnhardt is reportedly paid. Other interesting numbers: Jimmie Johnson , $23 million annually; Tony Stewart, $19 million; Kasey Kahne, $14 million. The report also said Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Fenway Racing were the highest-valued teams, at $335 million and $313 million respectively.

Reading the West Coast old-timers newsletter “Fabulous Fifties,” we learned of the passing of talented California road racer Chuck Daigh. Though we watched Daigh in action several times a half-century ago, our most vivid and fond memory of Chuck at the wheel was in the now-famous Lime Rock Formula Libre race won by Rodger Ward driving Ken Brenn’s Offy midget. At the wheel of a Formula One Grand Prix Maserati, making the right hand turn at top of the downhill, Daigh would slide his left rear wheel off the paving to throw rocks at the closely following Ward. Ward finally got by to win and after the checkers both laughed off the hail of pebbles Ward encountered trailing Daigh. Ward later told me car owner Brenn was so happy about the victory, he let Ward keep the entire first-place prize money of $1,600.

We liked the play on words SCCA amateur racer Larry Mason of Burbank, Calif., used to describe a recent on-track outing, “The thrill of victory and the agony of concrete,” was his vivid reflection of Wide World of Sports TV slogan, substituting concrete for defeat.

Ye Ed thoroughly enjoyed the July 23 “Lesson in History” column on Plant Field in Tampa, Fla. In recalling this Florida State Fair half-mile dirt oval, I always smile, recalling a sign facing drivers on a light pole midway down the main straightaway reading: “No parking after 3 p.m. Wednesdays.”

Jimmy Dunham, the winning riding mechanic in the 1935 Indianapolis 500, died over the weekend. Dunham, who rode to victory with Kelly Petillo in 1935, was 96 years old.