Night racing used to be a special time in NASCAR. When there were only a couple of races held under the lights, the excitement level was definitely up several notches. Bristol, Richmond, Charlotte and Daytona holding Cup races in primetime made the sport seem even more exciting than usual.

But then television came into the picture and just as it dictates the direction of other sports because of the big money the networks pay for the rights to broadcast events, TV wanted more late starts and night races for prime time ratings and ad revenue.

Now we have Darlington, California, Homestead and Chicagoland with night races on the schedule. In honesty, in this case more is not better.

Too many night races have taken the uniqueness out of the picture. From a media standpoint, newspapers miss their deadlines for the morning edition when races run late as do local television stations, which can't get highlights into the evening news.

Weekend night racing is also killing weekly short tracks, who make their bread and butter on Friday and Saturday night shows in the summer. But when the Cup Series is running, these tracks feel a tremendous loss of attendance as fans stay home in droves to watch the big boys on television rather than come out to the local bullring.

My guess is that we will see half of the Cup schedule become prime time affairs at some point, again at the direction of television. All of the Chase races are heading to Saturday nights at some point, when NASCAR and the networks realize there is no way to compete head-to-head for ratings against the NFL on Sunday afternoons.

And the August Bristol night race, once the toughest ticket in NASCAR, will become just another race under the lights.

That's a shame.