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Daytona Int'l Speedway Encouraging Fans To Exchange Confederate For American Flags

Daytona Int'l Speedway is "encouraging race fans to trade in their Confederate flag for the American flag" and will "host a flag exchange" during the upcoming NASCAR weekend, including Sunday's Sprint Cup Series Coke Zero 400, according to Skyler Swisher of the Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL. DIS officials "stopped short of banning the Confederate flag from being flown in the infield." They said a ban could not be implemented because of the "late nature of where we are." However, DIS President Joie Chitwood III said that much thought "will be given to whether the Confederate flag should be banned from being flown in the future." Swisher notes the flag is "already prohibited from being used in an official capacity at NASCAR events" and from "being sold by vendors." NASCAR Chair & CEO Brian France said the governing body would "go as far as we can to eliminate the presence of that flag" (Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL, 7/1). Chitwood: "Going forward, we'll really have to look at where that other flag goes, because it doesn't have a place in our sport and we've got to take a thoughtful process on how we get to that place" (ESPN.com, 6/30). Chitwood added, "We want to be open and inclusive. We want to celebrate the American flag this weekend. That’s the flag that we should be celebrating. We’re going to have flags available so if fans want to exchange whatever flags they have for an American flag, we want to make sure they wave our nation’s flag. It’s our nation’s birthday." In Orlando, George Diaz wrote holding a flag exchange on July 4th weekend "seems to be the perfect way to handle a combustible situation." Although small, a segment of NASCAR fans "are very upset that there has been such dramatic pushback on the Confederate flag in the wake of the racially-motivated killings at Charleston" (ORLANDOSENTINEL.com, 6/30).

DRIVING THE CONVERSATION: Driver Jeff Gordon said, “I support NASCAR. I’m so glad that they banned it. We’ve done the same thing at Hendrick Motorsports. Anything that we can control, it has no place on any of our team apparel or memorabilia or anything like that. I'm glad that it's not out there anymore” (“CBS This Morning,” 6/30). Dale Earnhardt Jr.: “We celebrate our southern heritage every time we race at Darlington, for example, or Daytona, and we tie a lot of what we do into representing and acknowledging, recognizing the military. We'll do that this weekend coming up at Daytona and I think that we obviously understand that our sport started in the south. We have a huge fan base in the southeast” (“Squawk Box,” CNBC, 6/30).

JUST TELL ME WHEN AND WHERE: USA TODAY's Mike Hembree reports NASCAR is hoping to release the '16 schedules for its three national series "earlier than last year's late August release." A partial goal of the push is to "give teams, tracks and those other omnipresent NASCAR stakeholders (mostly television networks) more time to plan." When the schedules are unveiled, "chances are they will be similar" to the '15 versions, "despite the fact that some drivers -- and more than a few fans -- say they would like to see the Sprint Cup schedule, in particular, include new venues." The '15 Cup schedule "brought notable changes." NASCAR Vice Chair Mike Helton said that he "doesn't expect significant shifts" for '16. He added that the sanctioning body "is open to changes but he likes the idea of letting the new structure settle" (USA TODAY, 7/1).

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