NASCAR and Budweiser recently announced that the Budweiser Shootout, an exhibition race held during Speedweeks prior to the Daytona 500, will undergo a major format change starting with the 2009 race.  For the past 30 years, the race sponsor extended invitations to those drivers who won a pole the previous season, or previous winners of the race.  Now, the race will only be open to the top 6 teams from each manufacturer.  The top 6 teams will be determined by the previous year’s points position.

It is quite obvious the underlying reason for this shift in how the race is run: Coors is now the sponsor of the Pole Award every week, whereas Bud held that sponsorship.  The folks at Anheuser-Busch did not deny this, in fact, they cited it as the fundamental reason for the change.

Read more over at FastMachines.com