Next Saturday begins the college football season, which for many means a day-log ritual of tailgating and television watching from 11 a.m. ‘til whenever the food and drink run out. Oftentimes, it’s well after midnight before ESPN’s Pac-10 game is wrapped up.

So from now until November, every college football fan has each Saturday booked. The unfortunate side of that is they’re going to miss a great battle for the Truck Series and Nationwide Series championships.

Following Wednesday night’s race at Bristol, the next six Truck Series races will be run on Saturdays. Seven of the remaining 10 Nationwide races are on Saturdays. The weekends may be NASCAR territory from February until August, but once September arrives, racing’s biggest rival comes out of hibernation.

How can NASCAR combat that? Roll out its own version of Monday Night Football.

The Truck race at Bristol is quite possibly the most prominent event on the tour’s schedule. Why? Because it’s on Wednesday night.

Hosting all three of NASCAR’s top series at the same venue is the right answer, but the distinction comes from isolating the events on their own days. The Truck Series has found its niche on Friday nights, although 14 of this season’s 25 races are held on Saturday. Those 11 matinees aren’t enough to separate the series and highlight its strengths: veteran drivers, good racing, short events.

Trucks are already the third rung on NASCAR’s ladder, looking up to Nationwide and Cup. Friday night races are trumped by who won the Cup pole. Saturday races are benched by which Cup driver won the Nationwide race. That’s already two strikes against a series struggling to find a title sponsor for next season.

Wednesday’s race did come on the heels of an earth-shattering penalty for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Nationwide Series, but vindication came when one of the teams’ Cup drivers — Kyle Busch — put a halt to Johnny Benson’s attempt at four consecutive victories.

The race’s only significant competition in sports was the Olympics, which presumably won out. And it did come on a night when a majority of the grandstand left the track at 10 p.m., snailed through traffic and then turned around and went back to work Thursday morning. That, however, is a moot point since 80 percent of Cup races are on Sundays.

More midweek races — perhaps a Wednesday night special each month, if you will — can bury many of the stigmas that harm the Truck and Nationwide series: sponsor exposure and brand identity for both the series. And it can keep NASCAR from having to play second fiddle to Saturday traditions that are ingrained in our blood.

• Josh Pate, NASCAR.COM

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

Gimmicks are fun, and sometimes, if done correctly, can turn out to work beautifully. But holding more NASCAR events during the week is an idea that belongs strictly in the round file, aka, the garbage can.

One Truck race on a Wednesday night in Bristol, I like it — breaks up the monotony of holding the race in the late Friday night hours and it helps relieve what is already a jam-packed Friday night at the Bullring known as Bristol Motor Speedway.

But Bristol is the exception, not the rule.

NASCAR was meant to run on the weekend — it’s been like that from the beginning and there is no reason to change it now. What is special about NASCAR is it’s a weekend vacation for many fans. Get the motorhome to the track Thursday, enjoy a ton of stock-car action Friday through Sunday, hit the road back home Monday and you’re back to work Tuesday.

If NASCAR starts putting races on Wednesday and Thursday, fans will literally need to take a week off of work just to get their money’s worth, and attendance will suffer because of it.

Even the locals will find it tough to take the family to the track until the wee hours of the morning on a school and work night. As a parent myself, it’s just not a feasible option. Can you imagine being stuck in post-race traffic on a night when the kids have to be at school the next morning? It’s enough to make you cringe.

Now some will argue that every other sport holds weeknight events — baseball, basketball and hockey have been doing it forever, and even football has added more Thursday night games to its schedule. None of those sports even come close to the spectacle that is NASCAR.

Going to a NASCAR event is unique because it only comes to your town at most twice a year. Baseball has 82 home games, basketball and hockey around 40, the NFL gives fans eight regular season games and a couple of preseason tilts — NASCAR is once or twice, and the sport wants as much attendance and focus on its events as it can get.

The only way that is going to happen is to hold it on the weekend.

I’m all for once or twice a year seeing a Truck race held on Wednesday night, it’s different. But to regularly schedule Nationwide or Cup races mid-week is a horrible idea. While some traditions have hung around past their time, keeping races on the weekend isn’t one of them.

• Bill Kimm, NASCAR.COM

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.